Old man and boy
and donkey carrying water,
wood,
slowly climb
from desert floor
through hills
to mountain peak.
Boy chatters freely,
mind leaping over
miles, weeks,
chasing down side roads
like squirrel chasing
squirrel,
not noticing that the man
never speaks.
Thus through desert,
through hills,
to Mt. Moriah.
Fire prepared, altar laid,
boy suddenly stops,
puzzled,
asks father,
"I see wood, fire,
altar, knife,
but where, my father,
is the sacrifice?"
And then, as old man
took him,
tied him, laid him on the wood,
raised knife
high above the scene, boy
understood.
"Enough!
Don't harm the
boy!"
Thus spoke he
who saw before him
arrayed
like pictures on the wall
of a museum of horrors
myriad moments
like this,
brought on by
choices
made by men,
but paid for
by their
sons.
As son and father embraced,
unable in their relief
to know or care
why they'd been
spared,
God looked in anguish on
his son,
whom he could not
save.
Poem ©1985 by Catherine A. Hampton. All rights reserved. Do not republish or distribute in any form, electronic or hard copy, without the author's permission.
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