go to the next part of Storm
'Vengeance is Mine, and recompense; their foot shall
slip in due time; for the day of their calamity is at
hand, and the things to come hasten upon them.'
``For the LORD will judge His people and have
compassion on His servants, when He sees that their
power is gone, and there is no one remaining, bond or
free.
He will say: 'Where are their gods, the rock in which
they sought refuge?
Who ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the
wine of their drink offering? Let them rise and help
you, and be your refuge.
Now see that I, even I, am He, and there is no God
besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal;
nor is there any who can deliver from My hand.
For I lift My hand to heaven, and say, ``As I live
forever,
If I whet My glittering sword, and My hand takes hold
on judgment, I will render vengeance to My enemies,
and repay those who hate Me.
I will make My arrows drunk with blood, and My sword
shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and
the captives, from the heads of the leaders of the
enemy."
--From the Coptic Book of Deuteronomy 32:1-43
I love rituals...don't you? There's a picture I'm drawn to, again and again. Christ is bound to the pillar to be scourged, and He's crying aloud to the Kingdom. His head is covered in thorns and a strange, white light coruscates from His head, as if it contained all the lightning in the world. The interesting thing is, if you look closely, peering into the page, absorbing the picture, feeling the pulse of His pain, the sweat falling between His breasts, half kneeling, calf tensed, hard breath shooting holy screams into the night, if you look closely enough, you notice...He is not bound to the pillar. His fine, long hands grind into each other, wrist into soon-to-be-pierced wrist, tensed against the long, white pillar, no rope holding Him, no binding keeping Him from leaving, from turning away. It was a ritual that ate the linings of the earth from stem to root, and He loved every second of it.
I stand above her, heart beating, blood smeared along her back, on my mouth...oh my, my friends, how the ritual has changed. And I am loving every second of it. The blood, the life, the pulsing sacrifice of her, swelling across my tongue, panting in the mud, the prairie mud. The rain slashing down on her, naked. I am vengeance, and it must be carried out, it must be carried out, it must be carried out...I pick her up, my hand slick against her stomach, I reach in and pull, in that way that rends, that cleaves, that rips out and lets go to the whipping wind the feathers of her heart. I feel as if my life has been torn from me, my eternal immortal existence waged for naught. She keens against my thigh, why does it have to be so good? I must take her to the Oak.
I lifted her again, and lifted my wings of iron to the sky, so that they were lightning flashed, thunder blessed, I backed into the wind, into the sky.
But Deborah Rebekah's nurse died, and she was buried beneath Bethel
under an oak: and the name of it was called Allonbachuth.
--Genesis 35: 8 (English-KJV)
Allonbachuth, tree of life, of pain, of death; often have I used Her mighty span. Her rough and rotten heart has seen many of the wicked punished, many of the unjust cleansed by their own blood against Her loving embrace. She echoes in all the planes, but I like this echo the best. Now, after the rain of the storm has stopped, but the thunder, lightning and wind continue, howling her name, Her name. I have carried my jewel there to better grasp the basics, to better sing the songs of the ritual.
Throwing an obsidian wing to the sky I call to the wind to bring my jewel's feathers, they will be the instrument of my communion. Roughly I shove her into Allonbachuth's sweet grasp, her heads rolls to the side, her grime-streaked face, beautiful in the glowering light.
I thought I heard it then, but I couldn't be sure. I was pretty occupied, to tell you the truth. Was there a slight lilting to the breeze that ripped Allonbachuth's limbs? A glance in my jewel's eyes, reflected from the lightning? A shimmering in blue and sequins, a tawdry mess of a song? I didn't think so.
So I drew back, whispered some sweet words of salvation into the wind and drove the feather into her wrist, trapped along a blood-stained limb. Her blood coursing through my veins, lighting the muscles of my face into a rictus grin, hovering near my stomach, radiating outward, I grasped her other hand, spreading her out before me and leaned close, wings of rock and mud and granite beating behind, legs tensed against her, her lips moved, I drove the other feather deep into the pulsing heart of her.
She lay there, indescribable. Her hands to the side, offering herself to me. I would have taken her right there, eaten away her very soul upon the buffet table of Allonbachuth. She would have understood, like no-one else, She understood ritual. Jewel, however, did not. Her cracked lips moved and she sang. In some way, mysterious even to me, she reached into herself, Herself, and deep from in the wood of Her, her, pulled a song made of pain, of loneliness and love. Quickly, I reached down to secure her feet, but her voice gained strength and repose, driving me away. She brought forth a rose of pain, a glorious single rosebloom of pain.
I grasped the rose, till the thorns broke my skin and bled our mingled blood over the feather which I still held in my hand. It was time to leave, as she gained strength and clarity. I saw that. I needed time to think about what had happened.
It was the end of the ritual for the evening.
copyright 1995 by David Micko
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