Bewildered in the Wilderness

Black is the night
when bewilderment brightens
the soul in the light
with the sight that enlightens.

Bewildered in “wilderness,”
mid-barred Israelites
lacked lightness to progress,
against Moses’ insights,

grousing with great grief,
while they, wailing, wallowed,
disdaining their belief
in him whom they’d followed.

Not heading toward
any goal, they felt lost,
completely ignored,
twelve tribes tribal trash-tossed,

which made it important
to find leaders who
would help them trans-Jordan,
as Joshua would do.

Post-Pentateuch, Book Six
tells how they dry-crossed
the Jordan, but not Styx,
no more feeling lost.

Yet though Jews’ survival
continues still fraught,
of hope, grief’s great rival,
we’ll never be short.

 “Bewilderment” is an eighteenth-century coinage, meaning “thorough lostness”; to “wilder” is to go astray, to lose one’s path.

Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.