parent

'round

I have to leave today
if only
for a while
like
his mother leaving for a walk
around the Hundred Acre Wood
and he asking before
would you like
me
to go with you with her replying
no
but when I return
greet me as if
I had been away
a long time

no mother or
another
to whom to say
that
to
or hear that from

though
needing to leave
also
to return
in a later hour
of this day

having gone around

c(hristopher robin) l couch

Christopher Milne tells the story of the walk and the question in The Enchanted Places. This Christopher better known as Christopher Robin. (And I nearly forgot mentioning that his name was how I got my own. Christopher, not Robin but for him, anyway, my mom really liking the stories.)

photograph by Lukasz Szmigiel on Unsplash

Unbelief

(in Mark, chapter 9)

My favorite story from the

Christian New Testament

Isn’t easy

A father brings his son

(a parent brings a child)

To Jesus, saying

A demon throws his son into

The fire or the water

Anything destructive, for

The demon wants

To kill the child

To the father, Jesus says

That with faith, the boy

Will be cured,

The demon itself thrown out

To which the father says,

I believe

Help my unbelief

He had been told what to do

What was pat, even a guarantee

But the father’s honesty

Precluded the code

He bravely and with broken heart

Told Jesus what was real

The crowd pressed in

There was no more time for

Conversation, not even for proof

Of faith

But what we know is that

Jesus healed the child

If there was a test

The father passed,

Though there wasn’t

And he didn’t

Was Jesus surprised?

Was the father?

What is authentic was not

Surprised

Faith will out

And doubt

They both had their turns

And they

And theys did well

They made healing

They made good

C L Couch

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

The Sacrifice of Isaac

What is remarkable is the presence of the angel

Who stayed the hand of Abraham, bearing

The knife or whatever would be taking away

Isaac from his life

And is it remarkable

The surrender of the spirit of the son

To be carried away from the promise not of prophecy

But of parenthood

It happened

It would never be forgotten

My father took me to a place and set me down

To steal my life

Rams could not do this time

I must be the sacrifice

He is the offering to God

For what

Sorrow of the people

Plea for repentance

Future abundance in the land

Is it enough

To give up himself,

The words promised his father and his mother,

The dealing out of Ishmael,

His mother

Once sacrificed, always gone

Even spared, what should be left

Of hopes and dreams

And a father’s guard

If not affection

What is left for Isaac:

Was he blinded by the presence of the angel

Suffuse with the strength and majesty

Of God’s own following,

Will he live in love and faith and

Aspiration for a lifetime?

So much later, David weeps for Absalom

We might also wonder about the tears

Of Abraham

Relief, sorrow, the temerity of

Surrendering all sides to

Barter with the future

Of a parent

Of a people

Of a child

C L Couch

(caption) The sixth-century C.E. floor mosaic from the Beth Alpha synagogue, in Israel’s Jezreel Valley. The mosaic lay near the door, so that anyone who entered was confronted by the scene. Walking from here to the apse, visitors crossed a large mosaic zodiac and then a panel depicting a lulav (palm branch) and etrog (citron), menorahs, and the Ark of the Law—the same objects that accompanied the Akedah image at Dura-Europos 300 years earlier.

(from) https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-interpretation/binding-sacrifice-isaac/?mqsc=E3987540&utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=BHDDaily%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=ZE8A9JZ80