“Is there a poet of our generation who might chronicle the conversation of Father and Son on their way to Moriah?”
Thus asks Kierkegaard.
Every year I speak of this story, from the twenty second chapter of Genesis, on Rosh Hashanah.
I must confess I have never versed my dream version of the story:
Look.
See Isaac run.
Run Isaac run.
I have never understood Father Abraham’s silence.
I have never understood Kierkegaard’s suspension of the ethical.
This poet experiences the suspension of belief.
Asked to do the miraculous Abraham fails.
He does not argue.
Abraham does not ascend to a realm
beyond Fatherhood.
He was asked to transcend The Father, the One Above, and the One Within.
With this the poem begins.
Not with the monster who grabs his Son by the throat and cuts flesh off his body.
Half the poem would have been written if he cursed this father god.
Rabbi Kafka was right. Beyond the Old or the New, Abraham feared he would turn into Don Quixote.
Since this is no fantasy he also should have run.
Look Dick
Look Jane
See Isaac run
See Abe run.
Run Aryeh run
Run Joseph run
So what if I am called an also ran.
The Zen Master
Wonders why we would sanctify a murder.
so too
In the Bible
According to K.
Another line for this half poem:
I think I need a rest from the West.
This story always blackens Sarah’s breast.
