Isaac

Will it be always nightmare, always fever,
Now and hereafter?
Will nothing stop the currents running ever
Darker and swifter?

Let me forget. . . . It happened in my boyhood.
We rose up early,
Saddled the ass, took fire, and split the gray wood.
The dawn broke clearly.

Two days of level roads. And then toward sunset,
The country differing,
We piled the resinous wood before night’s onset
For a burnt offering.

And he, my patriarch father, knelt beside me;
His face was graver
In the long shadows. And a fear betrayed me
Then and forever.

And into arms too mighty to be shaken
I ran for shelter. . . .
The ropes were knotted. I lay bound and stricken
Upon the altar.

I watched a little flame run up and onward.
I saw him gather
All power in one body.
A knife flashed downward.
It was my father.

. . . . .

Will it be always nightmare, always fever,
Now and hereafter?
Will nothing stop the currents running ever
Darker and swifter?