Exodus

We drift apart like continents. 
Our shores rearrange 
themselves in awkward lines, 
successive drafts in 
the revision of the world 
we made for ourselves. 
My mother drew maps 
for sixteen years, holding 
a magnifying glass in one hand 
and with the other tracing 
the signatures of the planet, 
rivers and railroads, 
highways and city limits. 
Now I can only imagine her hand 
brushing the erasures of 
our landscape, smoothing 
the fault lines between us 
just as she smoothed the pages 
of her bible every night, 
leafing through them by 
the moon at her nightstand. 
I think she would understand 
when I say that this parting 
is our Red Sea, the open gate 
to a wilderness we might walk 
forty years without a map, 
every inch at least a mile. 
Like Israelites we will wander 
the counties just outside 
the promised land, all the while 
asking what pillar of smoke led us here, 
how a rose can blossom into desert, 
or why we must be chosen 
but still lost.