Guest page by Kent Lewis

The Binding of Abraham

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The Binding of Abraham

All that flows from God is a gift:

The first orchard overburdened with fruit;

Boughs dew-dappled and bent,

Fig heavy and nut-plumbed;

Clover-drunk lambs nestled in rooks,

Half-watched by drowsy shepherds;

The musk of ripe melon 

fresh cracked; a child

Lips sweet-stained with cherry

Nectar; spice and honey;

Resin of sun-baked cedar groves;

The broken bone 

Knit anew and strong;

The dissolving alchemy of fire;

Mutton that spits and drips;

Strings that snug

Meat to skewer;

The rope coiled around

Ankle and wrist

Binding you trim and prone;

The sheen of a well-oiled dagger

A gift!

Its edge of bronze

Pressing into neck.

A gift!

A chance to be

A willing pawn,

The Lord’s tool.

So whispers Abraham into Isaac’s ear.

Duty-bound to God’s dreadful word,

Abraham lingers before his task.

Father strokes son’s brow

As if comforting a fevered child,

Eyes locked on eyes, 

Four circles wide and wet 

with faith and fear.

Abraham notches the blade

Into the sweet spot

Just below the ear

Where blood will sluice

As from hooked and hanging sow.

Poised but perplexed,

Abraham pauses and thinks.

The son who obeys the Father

Is a father who slays his son.

To quench my Lord’s blood-thirst,

I must become all murder,

An abomination

In the eyes of God.

In the marrow of my bones 

A fury of ancestors shriek 

“Kill not kin!”

Yet this is God’s command

And must thus be good,

A gift.

My Lord, I am unworthy 

Of such beneficence;

Please give it to another

More willing to sacrifice

And kill in your name.

Give it to the shameless

braggarts who boast

“I never err.”

In my privy self, I yearn 

For insurrection

Against such a vile order.

In truth, I crave to pit

Servant against master,

Child against parent,

Creature against Creator.

In the tent of my mind,

I silent speak: 

“My beloved Isaac, I beseech thee,

Defy God’s ungodly will

That holds me in thrall.

Rise up against your maker,

My cherished prince;

Be of sovereign mind,

Author of your own authority,

And render verdict

On the vassal Abraham

Too weak to dissent.

Buckle my brains with rock

And run into a fateless future;

Raise family not flags;

Do not let your blessed brood

Serve the whims of mad precedents.

Breed no more good soldiers,

Unfree and afraid,

Instruments awaiting orders,

Who find suckle in duty

To some rank and crude boss

Puking forth edicts

Capricious and cruel.”

Instead, my Isaac, you nodding smiled,

And gathered the kindling

For your own funeral pyre.

You calmed my trembling hands

And showed me how to loop rope

Into an inescapable knot.

You did what Daddy said,

All trust, no guile, 

Like a good boy.

I would rather wear

a mess of weeping boils

That ooze and drip

Down a blighted face,

As Job was tasked,

Unasked and unaware,

With outward fester.

A man endures mere pain, but

My lot is to choose

Between two betrayals.

And each cankers me within,

A trial that none may win:

To see if I will finally choose

The Good

or the God;

To see if my soul will reject

A senseless call for slaughter,

And refuse orders 

from a nameless figure

In a white robe

Far away from the front,

In a hall of rich alabaster.

Eden was the cradle

of our first rebellion, and its fruit

Is for us to forever savour

The taste of good and evil;

So juiced with knowing,

We have since left the comfort

Of our green and youthful bliss, 

And instead have navigated

The wild spaces of the globe,

With the compass of our wits.

We’ve crossed deserts by ancient starlight,

Coursed the boundless sea,

Mapped the dark places

That never housed a single djinn,

And extended scopes to the heavens.

This is the legacy 

From our first mother,

She who took serpent’s counsel,

The bequeathment of Eve

Who cursed mankind

To always know

Right from wrong

Alone.

Perhaps God is like unto us,

A parent in our image,

Who silently thrills when His children

Show a spark of disobedience

That can be fanned to fullness

Of adult liberty. 

Was His furtive hope

For us to taste that taboo fruit?

What guardian keeps His ward

Basking in sticky ignorance,

In a paradise of sugary pleasures,

Forever weak and mewling,

Incapable and clingy,

Glutted on unearned rewards,

an unweaned babe

In a playpen prison?

Does God smite and blight us,

Each terrible test worse than past,

So we learn to reject tyranny,

And through the miracle of “No!”

Discover how to become ourselves?

Surely God seeks our best,

And envisions humankind

Sitting at His table as peers,

Becoming as unto gods, 

And like a good rabbi,

Hoping for pupil to surpass teacher,

Thus rendering God obsolete.

Helter-skelter these thoughts skitter

Through Abraham’s agonized mind

Before a fearsome discipline

Makes him seize the hot metal

Of his blasphemy, 

And plunge it into the chill

Waters of unsparing resolve:

To be the rod of God’s will.

You know the rest.

An angel, an intervention, 

A swap of sacrifices

(“Here use this sweetly docile sheep”) 

An awkward reunion 

between weary father 

and wary son, 

Two in the playpen still stuck.

But this mystery remains unclear, I confess,

Did Abraham pass — or fail — the test?

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