He looked up and then looked afar,
His eyes met the valley of Jerico,
The door of promise left ajar,
The endless view as far as Zoar.
He sighed like a man who had seen it all,
Like a king who had conquered an inheritance,
Like a great wise man who knew His call ,
Heard His voice and saw His all.
Like a soldier who had fought the battles of the day,
Like a father who brought his children home,
Like an old man who yearned to stop and pray,
To return to a place of his own.
He smiled as he gazed from Gilead to Dan,
All of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh,
And all the land of Judah,
The ever stretching grand Mediterranean Sea.
He looked toward Negev and the City of Palms,
The promised land,
The precious word that has come to pass,
A ceaseless obsession of this landmark.
Worn from the scars of yesterday,
The forty years of wilderness,
Rewards of a stubborn debt paid,
‘It is enough to this old man’, he said.
I often think of him,
The chosen one who never did,
Set foot in the land of promise,
The one who saw Him face to face.
The wise one who heard His whisper,
The one who stood in the gap,
To hold and deliver,
A people from the slave trap.
I often wonder, how He buried him,
Here on Mount Nebo,
And why He did it Himself,
And trusted no one anymore.
To pay His last respects,
To a man who failed the test of faith,
Waters of Meriba, they say,
The pivotal point of the day.
I often wonder, how it may have felt,
Not to step into but only to see,
Not to touch but only to imagine,
The milk and honey of the land.
To at last forgo the very last goal,
Of entering the territory,
The trophy of his calling,
Only to be buried by Him.
And as I stand on Nebo,
Watching all the land,
The Jerico, from Dead Sea to the Mediterranean,
An expansive sadness too grand.
Rain in the air I breathe,
A solemn sacredness engulfs,
The man who died and was buried there,
By the infinite great I AM.