A Tour of Israel: Climbing Mt. Sinai

By Ann Best

to Carrie

1981 Poetry Contest 3rd Place Winner

The hot sky turned around me like a wheel

While in my illness I was dreaming dreams

Of cool, clean sheets where I could lie and feel

Wet cloths upon my head, far from harsh screams

Of aching flesh and pain behind thick eyes;

Yet still I climbed because I knew I must

Learn how to walk with pain and how pain dies

With each step up through heat and clinging dust.

And then I saw the sky, a wheel of light

With spokes of love to turn and turn dark earth:

God’s commanding love burning through night,

Through sin, through fevered fear, a stunning birth

Of knowledge that the climbing purges pain,

That in sharp sorrow I could climb again.