About the Author
Keith Tornheim is a biochemistry professor at Boston University School of Medicine. He was a cowinner of a Great Lakes College Association poetry contest in 1967 and for twenty years has been a relapsed poet, with poems appearing in Poetica, Ibbetson Street, Boston Literary Magazine, Muddy River Poetry Review and Lyrical Somerville (The Somerville News/Times). His poems have been a part of High Holiday and other services of his congregation. In recent years, conversations with dancer/choreographer Wendy Jehlen on her developing Lilith composition led to the writing of a poem cycle on the story of Lilith, the first consort of Adam, subsequently published with still shots from the performances as I Am Lilith: Dancer on the Wind (Big Table Publishing). This instigated another poem cycle, Spoiled Fruit: Adam and Eve in Eden and Beyond (Poetica Publishing). Three other books have been published: Fireflies: Poems of Love and Family (Big Table Publishing), Can You Say Kaddish for the Living? (Poetica Publishing), and Spirit Boat:
Poems of Crossing Over (Ibbetson Street). He lives in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, with his wife, Susan, a fiber artist and his primary critic and copy editor.
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Cover Art:
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The Sacrifice of Isaac
A poem series by Keith Tornheim
A poem series by Keith Tornheim
Introduction
The sacrifice of Isaac is a well-known bible story—God’s command to Abraham to go to Mount Moriah and sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering; Abraham’s journey there with servants who were left at the bottom while Abraham and Isaac ascended the mountain; Abraham’s building an altar of stones, binding Isaac and placing him on the altar, taking out a knife to sacrifice him; and at the last minute a call from an angel not to harm his son, but instead take the ram that has been caught nearby in a thicket. The poems in this series give interpretations of the story from the standpoint of many of the characters—Abraham, Isaac, the ram, the angel, God, the servants, Isaac’s mother Sarah and his wife Rebekah, even the bush and the stones of the altar.
Sample Poems
My Mother’s Persian Plate
I, her firstborn, am uneasy as the heir
of this testament of her certainty and faith:
a Persian plate embossed with the sacrifice of Isaac.
There stands Father Abraham with the knife
raised above Isaac his son,
whom he clasps against his chest.
He has paused his strike,
his eyes locked with those of the angel
who gestures at him with one outstretched arm
to halt the sacrificial blow
and with the other holds the replacement, the ram,
here forced forward to death,
not caught by nature or misjudgment in a thicket.
But what if Abraham had not seen the angel,
because his gaze was narrowed
for the last look at his living son,
nor heard the angel,
because of the crushing pulse in his ears,
the speeded beating of his own heart
echoing his son’s?
What if he, in grief, had plunged his arm down
to fulfill his pledge?
What then? Was the angel authorized
to act against the focused will of Abraham?
Or would God have simply said,
“You have done as I asked,”
and then gone back to his heavenly abode
to ponder anew the problem of free will
and the measure of a man?
Sarah
“YOU DID WHAT?!!”
“GOD COMMANDED YOU?!!”
And Sarah stomped out of the tent,
leaving Abraham and young Isaac, newly returned
from their remarkable outing on Mt. Moriah.
Sarah went in search of God.
“Where are You, Lord?
Come to me and explain.
They say we are all Your children,
that You created the whole world.
But you did it with a WORD!
I bore Isaac out of my pain and blood.
Who are You to ask—no, demand—
to put him under the knife,
to take his life?
No, just the threat, AS A TEST?!
What would a child think?
What scars will he have under his skin?
How long must I rock him in the night?
And then who will comfort me?”
