I Am That I Am

The biblical verse referenced is from Shemot (The Book of Exodus).

“And God said unto Moses: ‘I AM THAT I AM’; and He said: ‘Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: I AM hath sent me unto you.’“ 

Shemot 3:14 (JPS Tanakh)

Map of the Holy Land, of Terra Sancta:

Sodom flames in the south;

eastward Babel towers;

in the center, Jerusalem, a perfect circle.

Truer than modern geography

to the spirit of this emphatic land,

this strip of sand set beside the rest of the middle east

like an exclamation point at the end of a phrase—

to indicate stress—

for surely some important thing is shown

in the bees big as birds, the weeds like trees,

terrific thistles, a nightmare of spikes,

from which the armored Crusaders,

the clanking Franks, could perhaps have hacked

bouquets. And something momentous, essential,

is said by the buffeting sunlight, the car horns,

the shoving onto busses, the barking dogs,

the babies howling insistent as existence;

Israel, like her God, says, “I am, I still am,” —

all her history and prophecy

one relentless conjugation of the verb “to be.”

I listen like the true and antique pilgrim

with beard and staff on the corner of my Latin map,

like him I add my “praise ye the Lord”

to these rude Hallelujahs.