After the voice

After Genesis 22:1-14 and Hebrews 11:17-19

After my name is called

I drop the knife, hearing

the clatter on the stones

and the ram bleating

in its crown of thorns

I fall to my knees,

weeping, and reach

to the boy’s arm,

grasping

it as the sob breaks

from my throat.

I hear the sob

from the stone

Photograph by Circe Denyer via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

On the stone

After Genesis 22:1-14 and Hebrews 11:17-19

He stands quietly, silently

as he finds himself lifted

to the stone and told to lie still

he watches the hands

bind him with rope

he says nothing but sees

the knife as it’s pulled

from its sheath, glistening

in the flashing sunlight

as the knife is raised

above him he closes

his eyes and waits

for the pain that

without warning

doesn’t come, stopped

by a voice to his father

by his father

Photograph by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

A place bound

After Genesis 22:1-14 and Hebrews 11:17-19

Movement for three days

neither forward nor back

only to –

to a place

where servants and friends

cannot, do not, come

a place to sacrifice

to test, perhaps to hope

but a place bound by a thicket

where a ram awaits, provided,

a ram is caught

in the thicket, provided

a ram is substituted

Photograph by Lynn Greyling via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.