Atop the Ancient Peaks

 Atop the Ancient Peaks

(“My command from God was to bless these people, and there's nothing I can do to change what he has done.” Numbers 23:20)

Stand atop the ancient peaks,
turn your eyes toward the borderline.
What do you see, what do you know,
what do you give to all of those on the other side?
Did you find a better place;
do you live where no terror can touch you?
Then hand it down from the mountain,
send the safety you have boasted of,
find the few who speak your language
and invite them higher to sit with you.

Take their stories deep within,
hear their ballads of uncertainty.
Add their name to your banners,
fly their flag along with your own.
Find the beat of their drums inside
your own pulse. Take the steep path
down along the cliffs and meet them
at the end of the road.

Tear down the fences,
obliterate the walls.
Speak their language, I know they will teach you.
Your day starts at quarter to nine
and theirs a half hour before. You have the time
to share the daylight,
you have the rhymes that connect families
to the windy faucets of your excursion;
you have accomplished more than you expected,
and you have more to offer than your shambled objections.

Sit across from their newly camped grounds,
stoke the fires that keep us warm. Lead them to
the place
you created, the safety of your offering.
They are fathers and brothers, daughters and mothers,
they thirst for protection too.
Be the blessing they already own,
be accountable for their welfare and well-being.

Jokers see nothing past their own noses,
thieves see everything they do not own.

But you can see, if you scan the horizon,
more and more dialects you need to learn.
Open the gate and let the floods wash their
crinkling skin, offer the food you prepared for
undiscovered orphans. Take their hands and
learn their pulse that palpitates the same as your own.