Most blessed among women is Jael,
In this dry foreign acre, might I find
Gather the judges to consider my destiny,
I am not her. She is
Who must know an eternity of days
Weak and faithless and shackled by fate
the wife of heber the Kenite;
blessed is she among women in tents. Judges 4:24
Deborah dreaming under her tree,
some feminist visionary
upon whose lips this name
discovered its origin.
Would she shackle this fate
to my foot and this mountain,
to repeat the legendary sins of a woman
with the supple strength and quiet
beauty of a wild goat?
obedient and acting on prophecy,
heroine, puppet, woman or wife,
doing the unexpected, what's expected of me.
Hammer my soul to the ground in shackles,
kneeling in puddle and stiff flow of duty, or life.
In the oath of God, weak victory.
God has promised me
this name sing his people,
the dying word seals a legacy.
not me, who must deny her ways
and will for a name
murmured on desert winds which carry
the salt and sweat off her longings
. . . to own a soul
as gentle as clouds against sun or plum horizons,
to bloom unnoticed in damp woods and deserts by sea,
as quiet as dusk or dawn,
for a heart as wild and calm as wind
and whisper of water slipping over stones . . .
waiting out the ghost, for judgement
and release unforgiving
ache bleeding up from the ground,
shackled to places she would not go.
Whose eyes question a secretive sky
that overcomes clouds to brush her where she waits
searching some part of her
breath and death in destiny.
to unmoveable mountains that much farther from sea,
limited to hoof and heart
beat of a goat, by oath and legacy
leaping rocks among mountains,
bleating to the sky for a different name.
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© 1995 Jael Bietsch
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March 8, 2000