Below the Mountain

I wonder if Isaac ever saw a therapist, to talk about that mountain trip.

I wonder if Isaac ever saw a therapist, to talk about that mountain trip.
Did he think about if his father’s hand had slipped,
If he had fallen upon his neck and nicked it,
If there had been no angel and no ram in the thicket?

And as they came down, was there a distance between them?
Father Abraham, father of many children,
With one exiled in the wilderness
And the other—the younger brother—
Living in the trauma of his obedience.

Did Isaac shudder when he touched him?
Did his father’s attempts at affection
Only remind him of being tied down,
With the knife held above him?

Did he question if he was loved?
Did he go blind as an older man
Because his young eyes had seen too much?
Did he feel as if he still lay upon the altar,
Spared of death, but his body bound by trauma?

Did the smell of smoke and flame, remind him of being younger—
Not of fireside banter,
But of scrambling, back against the wood,
Tears drenching his father’s skin,
His hands clenching the dagger?

Did he have night terrors—
Waking to wetted sheets,
Sweat on his cheeks,
His heart enflamed with anger?

Did he struggle then to trust?
Did he flinch when he was hugged?
Did he lament that behind his father’s name,
The legacy and the fame
There was a boy who questioned if he was safe?

Did he go a different way,
Paving a path below the mountain—
Not forsaking his father’s faith,
But displaying it without causing his children
To doubt how he felt about them?

Did he make his sacrifice with time instead of blade?
Instead of climbing up the hill,
Did he climb down onto his knees to play?
Instead of binding up their limbs,
Did he wrap his arms around his sons,
Change their clothes and kiss their skin?

Did he find within the embers,
Beneath the ashes of his pain,
A heart that was still tender—
And that it was his to give away?

Art by Dorothea Baer Tyler (1954, color lithograph print on paper)

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A quick note:
The stories of Scripture are the stories of my childhood. They painted my imagination in the way Ninja Turtles did for other kids my age. I have turned this particular story over in my mind like a jewel in the light for decades. I’ve read the various theological takes—some inspiring, others not so much.

This poem is not a theological contribution so much as an imaginative exercise for the sake of catharsis, an attempt to journey back into the heart and mind of the boy who first heard it.