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Joseph, an Excerpt
The following poems appeared in the Fall 2004 edition of Rock and Sling. And are ©2006 Andrew Kooman and cannot be printed or distributed in any form without permission from the author.
Andrew adapted a portion of the manuscript into a one act play that was an offical selection of the SAW workshop in Red Deer in 2008
JOSEPH, SON OF JACOB: TO THE PIT OF SHEOL I GO DOWN
to the pit of Sheol
I shall go down
mourning
and gather the
pieces of my son
whose torn body was
devoured by wild
animals
that gnash teeth
and bone
to the pit of Sheol
I go down to gather
the pieces of my son
who lived with me
as an alien
in the land of
Canaan a land
where my fathers
settled before me
a land of shed blood
and curses
a son I loved like no other
the son of my old age
a child of promise
born from the womb of my
beloved
who nourished the hope
that lay dead inside of me
the child who
told me my dreams
from the time he could speak
to the pit of Sheol
I go down
with the blood of my son
upon me
blood I sent
alone into the wilderness
where wild beasts
defiled him
to the pit I go
and will not receive
comfort until I
weep there
over his bones
JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA: WHAT IS TRUTH
later, he would read the words
touch them with his own fingers
touch the parchment ink
like he would touch his wife
softly, with reverence
longing in his body
hold the writing carefully
aware of the power
in his hand
to destroy it
the way he was aware
with one careless or intentional
movement
he might have
snapped his daughter’s neck
when she was young
excited with guilt by the
thought of it
those words somehow
beautiful to him
no longer holding him in the shadow
of that night
the honest syntax
removing the residue left
by the hasty language of grief
each time he read the words
touched the familiar characters
written by the hand of his dear friend
that much closer to realizing
the Judean governor’s tone of wondering
the tone of his own heart
the night his soul broke under
the tension of the same question:
“what is truth”
three words
a feather falling
the sound of water poured over hands
three words
the weight of stone
against a tomb