Abraham
In the salt marshes of Ur you first heard the voice,
though not yet a voice, nor a whisper:
Something wordless and soft,
like the rattle of cattails,
the sigh of papyrus,
it soughed in your ear,
your inner ear,
like a desert breath,
and suddenly
the whole world
went off
balance.
And something said:
“Move.”
“Go.”
Something said:
“Elsewhere.”
And if someone had asked
(though no one asked),
“Who is this god?”
you would have said,
“I do not know his name,
but he smells of mud flats
and salt and…”
(though no one asked)
“no other gods attend him.”
Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, Amethyst Review, America Magazine, Pensive Journal, Forma Journal, and The Society of Classical Poets. He is a certified catechist with the Archdiocese of New York, a Benedictine oblate of St. Mary’s Abbey in Morristown, NJ, and editor of The Catholic Poetry Room.
Amethyst Review 