When the entire land of Egypt hungered,
the people cried out to Pharaoh for bread
-Genesis 41:5
What sound does the call make?
Whose ears is it arriving to?
Is the call going in the ears or
bouncing away like the other noise?
What can be done about
the empty mouths?
Did we know this was
going to happen?
Did we learn about it
in dreams?
Is there profit in our response?
Is a full stomach profit enough?
If we’re passing out bread
what do we have for the
people who don’t eat bread?
How did we get here?
If we leave here, can we
set it up so we won’t be back?
Are we making the same mistakes.
Will it come around because it
went around?
Am I in Egypt or the other place?
Am I really a spy,
or are they the spies?
If this works out like it did last year
how soon before we realize
we never should have
left home?
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 25 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 “The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express” (Poems written in Japan – Ain’t Got No Press, August 2020) 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.
