Korban: The Offering, The Command

I have lived

as if a conscripted soldier,

battles of generations

played out

in a small house

on a narrow strait

by a sea never crossed

until I could heed

a different call

 

and so at long last

this is my offering

commanded from fire and mountain

   cleft of rock, an inner

   whispering roar

to be placed on the altar

to be yielded to fire

for the sake of forgetting, for

the sake of unstitching my body

from numbness and fear,

long over-dressed

by the edicts of others

to be of service

and not to be seen

 

and so I toss onto the flames

prohibitions I once mistook

   for sacred text,

   the mirrors I yielded

to the gaze of others

who can’t see me,

watching the red and the fierce

blue eat them up

 

and so I say thank you

for this forgetting, this dissembling

from burden to beauty -

commanding myself to remember

to take my freedom inward and outward

as breathe and courage

and say: yes, this is still

a life even if

it is mostly over.