Isaac's Last Stand #IamIsaac

* Jesus pray for me
* Isaac pray for me
#IamIsaac

Behold, saith he, fire and wood: where is the victim for the holocaust?

+-----The Emo Bible - Genesis Chapter 22 - Isaac's Last Stand (The Memoirs of a Sacrificial Son); Isaac's Thoughts Ascending The Mountain Carrying Wood (The Plan of Salvation Part 1)

In times like this I wonder,
(jagged wood pressing and rubbing
against my skin)
how deeply human memory
seeps into cinder,
how much of the burnt ash of me
would be venerated years later, long
after my obsequious soul rejoiced in
sharing its essence with vapor,
its new existential permanence, as the
arc and curve of my smoke, my incense,
speaks to my mother and father in hues
of black and grey,
my flesh making its last attempts
to contact kin from the world beyond.
I wonder too, afterwards, if Dad
will be too overcome with hysteria,
if in crazed frenetic panic,
adlibbing pious madness and mourning
in parallel,
that he will forget douse the fire of me,
if on his way down this somber
slope he will slide and come near to
slipping from a ledge. I hope not. I hope
he is too daedal for that,
angst of Abimelech and
corresponding anger of my Mom. Or
maybe, even, this day is fated, catalyzed
by some cosmic reciprocal wrath,
that amidst my screaming a syzygy
will arrest the sky
momentarily draping my family in
darkness to convict them their flawed
ways, rage of Ishmael,
or perhaps even the indignant
ghosts of Sodom making their presence
known?    
As a child I was touted to those
around me as positive proof of God’s
promise, angelic blessing fleshed
and birthed from a closed womb
against improbable odds. Who knows?
Maybe all along God’s cryptic promise
to benefit the world through me
was that someone’s *Chosen, lionized,
son would end up dying
a baseless, cruelly confusing, senseless
and benighted death.



-----Genesis 22:1-14
After these things, God tempted Abraham, and said to him: Abraham, Abraham. And he answered: Here I am. He said to him: Take thy only begotten son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and go into the land of vision: and there thou shalt offer him for an holocaust upon one of the mountains which I will shew thee. So Abraham rising up in the night, saddled his ass: and took with him two young men, and Isaac his son: and when he had cut wood for the holocaust he went his way to the place which God had commanded him. And on the third day, lifting up his eyes, he saw the place afar off. And he said to his young men: Stay you here with the ass: I and the boy will go with speed as far as yonder, and after we have worshipped, will return to you. And he took the wood for the holocaust, and laid it upon Isaac his son: and he himself carried in his hands fire and a sword. And as they two went on together, Isaac said to his father: My father. And he answered: What wilt thou, son? Behold, saith he, fire and wood: where is the victim for the holocaust? And Abraham said: God will provide himself a victim for an holocaust, my son. So they went on together. And they came to the place which God had shewn him, where he built an altar, and laid the wood in order upon it: and when he had bound Isaac his son, he laid him on the altar upon the pile of wood. And he put forth his hand and took the sword, to sacrifice his son. And behold an angel of the Lord from heaven called to him, saying: Abraham, Abraham. And he answered: Here I am. And he said to him: Lay not thy hand upon the boy, neither do thou any thing to him: now I know that thou fearest God, and hast not spared thy only begotten son for my sake. Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw behind his back a ram amongst the briers sticking fast by the horns, which he took and offered for a holocaust instead of his son. And he called the name of that place, The Lord seeth. Whereupon even to this day it is said: In the mountain the Lord will see.