No One Likes to Move – A Poem for Parsha Devarim

You have dwelt long enough at this mountain.

Is it ever enough?
I got used to being here.
I put up posters.

That’s how confident
I was I’d be here
for a while.

The shade has been
a blessing. No one likes
to pack.

Will the animals be
nervous about a
new location?

I’m going to miss the
old neighborhood.
Do You think all

we did was dwell?
Honestly, dwelling is
a lot easier

than moving.
No one likes to move.
Is it ever enough?

I cannot carry you alone.

Oh Infinite One –
Have faith in Yourself.
You are the All.

You can carry
the whole cabal.
You win all the

muscle championships.
They all wish they
could carry a fraction

of what fits on Your Finger.
We’re forty years into
this and You’re just

telling us this now?
We complain and
shuffle our feet in the sand

But we’re not buying
for a second we’re more
than a bissell in Your backpack.

We believe in You.
That’s not a metaphor.
That’s been our message

this whole time.

Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 23 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “Hunka Hunka Howdee!” (Poems written in Memphis, Nashville, and Louisville – Ain’t Got No Press, May 2019) and edited the anthologies “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.