ABSTRACT
Desert Journal reflects the journeys of Moses and Jesus through the desert. In addition to the use of cloud imagery as a source of symbolic significance for the speaker, weiss also repeats in Desert Journal the theological focus on the narrative of sin. Sin is a significant trope in Exodus for it is the need for atonement and a possible reconciliation with god that drive Moses to Mount Sinai. Desert Journal feeds into a long and diverse tradition of poetry in English that similarly elaborates on the desert’s symbolic significance. William Wordsworth, for instance, depicts the desert as a dream-like terrain that illuminates the human mind’s ability to transcend boundaries. Although the vision at the end of Desert Journal is one of becoming, made to accommodate ambiguity and unknowingness in the identity of a speaker who seems to be both human and non-human at the same time, it is also characterized by lucidity.
