I have been finishing a book-length poem called The Twelve-Gated City, after the heavenly Jerusalem that John saw in a vision, in Revelation. Our excerpt today comes the first of 33 dramatic monologues or dialogues. This speaker is Moses, a very old man, near death, on the top of Mount Pisgah, looking across the Jordan to the Promised Land.
I've just finished reading Naomi Wolfe's recent essay in which she insists the old pagan gods that Israel contended with, Baal, Moloch, etc. have returned, and it is they that we are contending with now.
The poem ?
Beautiful
Why ?
Because it flows, one image leads into another image, like the painting itself.
Not once did I have to stop, and ask myself, "Now what does he mean ?
It is always a great day when we get to read some of your own poetry, Dr. Esolen! This is magnificent, as always. I especially like your choice to render the name of Joshua as it was in the Hebrew, as that cements these thoughts of Moses even more firmly as a prefiguring of the other Yehoshua--the One to come! It is easy to see how Moses' hopes and pleas here are not just proximate hopes for Joshua's leadership of Israel, but also his hope for the future Messiah...a hope which he himself may not even be aware he is expressing. I eagerly look forward to getting my hands on a copy of The Twelve-Gated City, once it is complete!
Well, it's not website maintenance, as I thought.
It's a Gate Keeper, who sends posts made this time of night/morning for inspection in daylight.
No need now.
No, not now: not a week later.
Here's what happened.
I was responding to your February 16th comment, and my post was up for about 3-4 seconds, and then it literally disappeared right in front of me.
Naturally, I was miffed, as this was the second time this has happened to me.
I fired off a few more comments, all of which did the same disappearing act, and then decided to USPS you.
I kept looking for approximately 18 hours, and none of those posts were up.
Yesterday, thinking the posts were still not up, I indicated again I was going to USPS you.
A few minutes later I found those missing posts.
Someone at Substack had put them back up at some point in time.
My take on all of this ?
I'm a very early, Morning Owl.
It is routine for me to be online from 2:00 AM on.
I think sometimes I'm running into Substack's website maintenance timeframe, and that's where the snafus are.
If Substack was censoring me they would not have eventually posted my posts.
"It's over, and done with, as far as I am concerned.
"Never to smudge and smear the holy Name
As if it were a shekel in your bag –"
Absolutely perfect...Our Culture uses the name of God as a throw-away word and as every part of speech.
How timely.
I've just finished reading Naomi Wolfe's recent essay in which she insists the old pagan gods that Israel contended with, Baal, Moloch, etc. have returned, and it is they that we are contending with now.
The poem ?
Beautiful
Why ?
Because it flows, one image leads into another image, like the painting itself.
Not once did I have to stop, and ask myself, "Now what does he mean ?
Oh, my. I will listen to this again and again, and look forward as well to the completed opus!
It is always a great day when we get to read some of your own poetry, Dr. Esolen! This is magnificent, as always. I especially like your choice to render the name of Joshua as it was in the Hebrew, as that cements these thoughts of Moses even more firmly as a prefiguring of the other Yehoshua--the One to come! It is easy to see how Moses' hopes and pleas here are not just proximate hopes for Joshua's leadership of Israel, but also his hope for the future Messiah...a hope which he himself may not even be aware he is expressing. I eagerly look forward to getting my hands on a copy of The Twelve-Gated City, once it is complete!