To be alone in shifting wheat / On rocks in the sun / Beneath stirred-up clouds / And singing angels / Audible in the wind.

I’m alone / Like my father/ When he went out / Leaving what he knew / For a place he’d not been / That God would show him.

My father broke my heart /  Betrayed me / Stealing me away / Before my mother awoke / To be an offering to his God.

When Mother learned / Her soul passed away / Out of the world.

How she loved me / Filling me / With laughter, love and tears.

Bereft in this field / Compassionate One – Do You hear me / From this arid place / Of snakes and beasts?

From afar / a caravan appears / Camels, men and a girl / Like sticks standing in an oasis / That Isaac does not see.

Sitting still / Meditating in the afternoon sun / Beneath swirling clouds / And singing angels / That he does not hear.

‘Who is that sitting in the field?’ Rebecca asks.

‘My master Isaac, / Your intended one, / Whose seed you will carry / And birth new worlds.’ Eliezer says.

Then she fell from her camel / Shocked and afraid / Onto the hard ground.

She veiled her face / Bowed low her head / Together they entered Sarah’s tent / And Rebecca comforted him.

 

Poem by Rabbi John Rosove