ABRAHAM AND HAGARBy Miriam Stanley, Senior Editor- Rogue Scholars Press [miriam@roguescholars.com]
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GENESIS (by Miriam Stanley)
Now Sarai (Sarah)....bore him no children, and she had a handmaid,
an Egyptian ...Hagar.
And Sarah said unto Abram(Abraham)’ The L-rd has restrained me from bearing children,
go unto my handmaid....’Genesis, chapter 16
1.
The man took Hagar; she acquiesced.
and Sarah, now stoic, lay quiet,
a grey eggplant in the desert sun,
looking at G-d, counting the hours.
... Abe fondled his plaything....The deflowered maid prayed to Isis under the fluttering leaves of ripened dates, blood touched
her thighs along with sheer luck and temporary pain.... She knew, somehow, that a power
has shifted.
Abe forgot the work of making an heir, he discovered the fun.2.
Abraham strutted.
The MacDaddy of the hen house...
He smacked Hagar´s bottom, leaving a lovely pink spot that resembled Egypt.The palm trees fluttered like righteous women on wedding nights.
Old Abe leered at the submission of twilight, crowed, “I want that, also.’Through the Valley of the Shared Bed, the women tended the old man´s flocks; giving each other
the evil eye. They glared at each other´s tents throughout the Sabbath.Sarah realized she was the mistress, but the maid was a mistress, too.
Hagar straddled the sowing and the sex play.
She was determined.Sarah saw the secrets she and Abe shared loosen like an unknotted scarf that Hagar now wore;
small jokes about household staff, the dreams about children.Abe now turned to Hagar on the day the harvest was ruined, and he worried about geese flocks
and goat herds.The young maid floated above Sarah´s head; she could not catch her.
3.
Sarah despised the shared bed.... The shared meal.... The male toy that slept with her, alternate nights.
And when the grey eggplant birthed an heir, she put her hand on the golden crown of his pink scalp,
and said, “You shall share nothing’.Hagar stared at the extension of her own anger, named “Ishmael’, and said, “You were born first.’
Sarah glinted, a crystal probing the rocky trail off Carmel to Yaffa´s shining beaches... She said “This is mine’, as her husband´s body lay over hers.
Hagar, next week, whispered the same.
Ishmael grew, with a knife in his hand, being labeled ‘the son of a maid´.
He heard of his mother´s beatings at the hands of Sarah.....He bided his time.
The rooster of the chickens stared at his wheat fields, his full orchards, scanned the cattle heavy with
warm milk, and said,’My work is complete’.G-d´s table was set with hissed words in small tents. And when Sarah finally evicted Hagar, the
candles were lit.Epilogue.
A boy, Ishmael Rachman, throws stones down Nablus´ winding streets.... Tries to hit the Israeli
constricts cowering in a sentries´ 8 x 7 bunker....Yitzee Weisberg warns, “David KILLED Goliath; rocks can kill.
Yitzee sprays the kefyahed shabeen who have absolutely no cover.
A three-year-old dies through the swissed walls of Nablus streets.
Amina Mohammed screams continuously, begs helplessly for an ambulance.
The ambulance can´t come - it´s been held back by an Israeli roadblock.
Amina curses the occupying forces, while Ishmael stones a settler.
A Little About Miriam ... Miriam Stanley is senior editor of roguescholars.com and Rogue Scholars Press. She has performed at the Bowery Poetry Club, Dixon Place, The Cornelia Street Cafe, and numerous other venues. She has also performed on radio station WBAI in New York City. She contributed poems to the anthology, "Skyscrapers, Taxis, and Tampons". Her work has also been in Long Shot Magazine and numerous other publications
[Ed note: The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the website owner. This site believes in freedom of expression of many viewpoints.]
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