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Shaking the Tree
How can it be put in perspective? There is no true congruency between one moment and any other shape. It stands alone. Imagine the moment when Abraham, still breathless from his sudden experience of promise fulfilled, still hoarse from giving thanks, still filled with the sight of his newborn son raised on joyous hands above the altar of faith, heard the Voice returned to speak a new command: Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering Mute. The man who argued with his God so freely, and who had praised Him so freely, could not speak from within this new bondage. Spent. The man who had lived his life seeking but a single promise of being father to a son could not resist this command, this absolute sacrifice. We cannot grasp it. The mindless pain. The shapelessness of despair. The lifeless motions. But the image before the boys wide eyes, that is another matter. Isaac, with the memory of the dagger descending, could never overcome this moment. The shapes were silhouetted and clear. The boy, although made a wealthy man by the standards of the City, aged prematurely and was ever ill, never able to share in the happy promise he, himself, symbolized. Never more than a sacrifice. He had not glimpsed the angel holding back his fathers hand. He was never able to tear himself from the ash-strewn altar tucked away in the shadow of the Tree of Life. |
Shaking the Tree © 1998 by Tobin James Mueller
"Ash" published by ArtsForge Press.
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