In the Desert with Amalek

"Remember what Amalek did to you by the way as you came out of Egypt." (Deut 25:17)

I remember
I remember slings and arrows,
Cruel fortune that cast me into the desert

A void of

Hatred
Bound and bordered by ignorance,
Indifference;
Where we were slaughtered--
Together with the others,
The weak
and vulnerable
and less-than ones.
The silent and
invisible ones:
The Other.

I remember.

I remember
the deserts of Sinai
and Dachau
the dust of Somalia and Selma.
I dream the salted earth of Capetown
And Cabrini Green,
And the poison waters swirling through New Orleans
As they run to the oil-slick sea.

And I remember:

I remember--
Amalek.
Who tastes power
Like wine
Like fire.
He sips from a full cup
and it slips down
Filling him
Slithering into a full and bloated belly
Coiling around his heart and
Whispering "Eat!
Nothing is forbidden
In the desert of your heart."

Amalek stretches forth a mighty hand
In the desert,
His desert
of poison and dust
To grab and grasp and tear
Dreaming his dreams
of insatiable power,
of desiccation and
unfillable hunger.
His soul is famine.
His touch is despair.
He gathers the weak
He takes the Other
And swallows us all--
Unthinking,
Unremembered,
Wanting only
More.

He stretched out his hand--
     He stretches out his hand--
          He will stretch out his hand
To slake his thirst
Sate his hunger
And need
Until I say "Stop!"
Until I demand "Never again!"
Until I become we,
And the Other is me,
And we remember
And stand together
In that vast and darkened desert
And make it bloom.