Your Gods O Israel

Moses on high, his people having danced the dance
of wanting to see the god who led them
out into the harsh, odd, bright, fearful
fatherless, motherless, child forsaking waste--
called wilderness, freedom, emptiness, or--some say
'in the word', the bite of the word that drove them
out of meat and into starving nothing--
asked to see the face, saw nothing.

So delayed while Israel danced below
around the golden bovine face still molten.
'These are your gods O Israel,' Aaron said. Gods.

For in the shiny bovine mirror,
each one saw only his own need.

by RODGER KAMENETZ