Judges 7: In Writing

Night

fear wells from a bottomless spring

and anxiety swarms like 

cicadas covering the sky

chirps deafening.

Three watches split the night. 

In the first, the donkey brays.

In the second, I listen with the dogs

to the planes swooping overhead

the distant sirens that threaten

to grow close and loud.

Patter through the house.

Check the windows.

Turn off the lights.

Listen to the kids breathe.

Watch their chest rise and twitch.

Listen to their dreams 

that whisper

of vanishing.

Check the doors.

Even as you know how easily

this house can all be flipped

shaken like a laundry basket

contents crumbled and dirty on the floor.

Joshua: Chapter 24

God of history
God of faithfulness and choice
He is your belonging
in a land not your own
and the cycles close

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After what seemed like a farewell speech in the previous chapter, Joshua "gathers" (y's'f ) the people together one last time, this time in the fateful location of Shechem--the city Abraham first encountered upon entering the land; the place where Jacob settled when he returned from exile; the place where the eponymous gatherer, Joseph / yosef is finally brought to rest, in the portion (shechem ) promised him by Jacob so many years before: "And behold, I am giving you one portion over your brethren, which I took out the Amorites with my sword and with my bow" (Genesis 48: 22). 

And indeed it is not only the people who are gathered here but history itself, as Joshua draws the full story of the children of Israel, stretching back to a primordial river that predates and prefigures the formative Jordan that opened this book: "on the other side the Rivers sat your forefathers, Terach, the father of Abraham and Nahor" (Josha 24: 3).  Joshua follows Abraham on his fateful journey to Cannan and  to God, touching on key events: the choice of Isaac,  the split between Jacob and Esau, the descent to Egypt, the splitting of the Red Sea (which plays so dominant a role in the opening of this book, prefiguring the splitting of the Jordan). Surprisingly, Balaam's forced blessing is also included in the key overview, seen as an opening volley in the conquest of the Promised Land. From there, the crossing of the Jordan, the conquest of Jericho, all leading to single, primal choice: Who will you worship?  

Joshua demands a clear-cut choice, as split as the two banks of a river, or the covenant upon entering the land before the two mountains of Grisim and Eival. Indeed, the covenant here is modeled on that earlier covenant, also including an etched stone. There can be no more walking on both sides.

 

Throughout, Joshua lets Israel know that God is their only true source of belonging.  The land that has become so central is not truly theirs, it is the land of the Amorites (24: 15): they dwell in "cities which you did not build... you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant" (24:13). In contrast to Jacob, who conquered Shechem with "sword and bow", his descendants won with God's intervention, not with "sword and bow" (24: 12).  It is God who has been with them throughout their journey, a faithful God of relationship and history, who demands faithfulness back,

Echoing the altar erected as "witness" between the interlinkage of the Eastern and Western tribes, the tribes all accept and witness their interlinkage with God.

Genesis 25: In Writing

At the moment of ingathering
I gather to you

my woman
my wife

possessive of belonging
possessing and possessed together

as other possessions
spread outwards
to distant beginnings
and  rising suns

you and I
curl into each other

At last I say yours
you becomes mine
and the exiled, expelled, separated
seen and unseen
are gathered back
and called by name

Genesis: Chapter 25

Multiplicity

yet specificity
to at last be the only

Genesis 24: In Writing

After the walking
and the wandering
the endless road
and distant hills
the pieces sloughed
and lost
trickled and dried
within the cracked footprints
there is a way back to the doorway
to return from outside in
into the warmth of your mother arms
murmuring living water


              ***

To Sarah:

Go back in time
start over
fix this time
the primal mistake
I hear you in your listless silence
See you in your gaping tent

This time I asked
you acquiesced and followed
rising in your new-moon glow
full of endings
and beginnings

Genesis: Chapter 24

After loss,
return
Go home,
if not fully home


Find comfort for what was taken

Genesis 23: In Writing

Listen! I say
Please hear me!

in this gaping silence
cessation of your voice
you curled in a closed ear
pink rimmed and lovely
as a swirled shell
rushing waters within
brittle armor without

I see you
discover your face
as
my dead,
my absence
my loss

Genesis: Chapter 23

Death
birth
death


We discover belonging
in the gaping loss
communication in loneliness
Listen, please!