1
He loads fresh water,
then he packs the summer fruits,
salt fishes, and dry
bread.
He shrouds his knife;
it hangs, hidden in lambskin
softer than an infant’s gaze, controlled
by studs on his belt.
He takes to the road
not as a ship plows the sea,
not like a wind in the desert,
but as a rune, etched forever on the bones
of time.
2
Chosen, he has three days to Moriah,
his son breathing at his side.
God commands
against His own commandments.
Old father,
kept faithful by his luck, is hostage
to his heart’s desire,
while a mother at her well
dreams of generations numerous as stars.
In the dregs of the night,
when the moon shines over the ominous crags,
he imagines he’s trussed the boy,
drawn the blade. Yet,
each morning he rises to guide the way,
wanting always
to abide God’s pace,
listening to thirst, or for the words to halt
the hard-edged journey to the high plateau.
3
As the day grows hot knots choke,
the sunlight glints on bronze.
But stop. Wait.
He hears the bleating of a ram,
bounding down, throat first. A sign and then
a sigh,
released for all the world.
He makes it home.
The cloth and ropes of sacrifice well stowed,
he pulls the very knife across a loaf.
This poem also appears in the March 2024 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 89, No. 3, page 8). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
