When I saw the knife
And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. (Genesis 22)
I knew too much to be fearless.
He’d been so weird on that trip up
The mountain.
Don’t worry, it’ll be all right, Dad said.
But something was wrong. Something
Had to be killed
For God
But all we’d packed was wood
For the pyre.
I’d seen animals sacrificed before:
Slit the throat and light a fire.
Everything is all right after that.
God gets satisfied
And lets us live until the next time.
So when Dad tied me up
And put me on that pile of sticks
I knew too much to be fearless.
But I was just a kid – I mean, a child –
And stronger instincts
Said trust, obey.
In the silence of that mountain altar
We heard our hearts beating,
My father’s in time with my own:
Two primal imperatives
Insisting on life
Resisting the twisted logic of
Sacrifice.
But then we heard something else
That held the blade in abeyance:
A rustle nearby,
A young goat trapped in the brambles,
Caught in a tangle of deep-rooted faith,
A perfect substitute,
A kid - I mean a lowly child.
It would do.
Why are you crying,
My sweet young friend?
What?
You say that kid was
You?
