#noach

Noach

listen. you have always tasted the sea on the tip of your tongue, but you have never dreamed that you would drink it down like a dying man asking for water to quench his thirst. listen. at fifteen you stood on the shore and you heard the roar of a wave as it broke upon the rocks and you left with the scent of salt on your shoulders. you are attracted to it, i know you are. if it was left up to you as it is, you would fill your vessel with the sea and pour it into a glass. as if it were something to be contained. listen. at twenty-five you stood on the shore and you watched men wrestle with the sea, take their iron and their wood and forge through it until it was their slave and you left with your head bent just a little lower. you sympathize with it, i know you do. if it was left up to you as it is, you would take yourself and walk into the sea with arms spread out, as if you forget that you are to return to the dust God made you from, not sand. as if it cannot break its chains and become the master again. listen. at thirty-five you stood on the shore and you waited for your betrothed to come, for the night to fall and for the tent flap to close and for the inevitable, and you left with uncertainty churning in your belly. you share its fears; i know you well enough to be certain. if it was left up to you as it is, you would speak to it as a friend, like your first mother used to do before the forbidden nectar stained her skin. as if it would respect you because of it. listen. i do not think you understand me here. listen. years and years and years later you stood on the shore and you laughed a tainted laugh as you saw your sons playing at the water's edge--tainted because your husband had heard the voice of God, tainted because if all went as He said that same water would drown sinners in its depths like a dog chewing at a bone--and you left with the salt on your tongue starting to taste bitter, like poison. you are frightened of it, i know you are. if it was left up to you as it is, you would sleep on the shore and ask the water 'why.' as if it would answer you if you tried. listen. a week later you stood on a hill overlooking the shore and you saw the tourmaline waters from the corner of your eye, but you did not smell the salt anymore because the only thing you could remember was wood, wood, wood, in your eyes, your ears, underneath your nails, in your skin--the scent of shavings tickling your nostrils because your husband was building a boat (an Ark, he called it) because God said so--and you left with an emptiness inside of you that you could not explain. you cannot ignore it, i know you cannot. if it was left up to you as it is, you would hold the sea in your mouth until all of its pain oozed into yours and your words were salt, salt, only salt. (but not the fine salt. the coarse one, the one you put in the mill and you grind and you grind until your hands are red but the salt melts on your tongue.) as if it would ever confide in you like you do in it. listen. one hundred and twenty years later you stood, not on the shore, but on the ramp of the Ark, and you sung a song that your mother sang to you long ago, when you were afraid and could not sleep, and you stood there watching the animals go by--two by two and seven by seven--like an army, like men ready for war, like a thousand glittering shields and swords and bucklers, like teeth of iron mixed with clay, and you left where you stood with the taste of blood instead of salt in your mouth. you think death is coming, and i know you are right. if it was up to you as it is, you would walk to the sea for the last time and ask it if it would kill to save eight lives--you, your husband, your three sons and their wives. as if it would admit that it cannot do anything else. listen. i do not think you have grasped the gravity of it all. at last you stand by a window in the Ark, and you tell yourself that you are seeing no shore but water and salt, salt, salt, seeing the 'fountains of the earth burst forth,' seeing the tears of God Himself fall from the sky like a funeral and judgment all at once, like a half-finished prayer, like a song that the rest of the world could have learned had they only listened, and this time you do not leave, but you stay, with your lips cracked and the sea stinging your tongue. you are Eve again, and i know that that is the truth. if it was up to you as it is, you would fill your vessel with the sea again and pour it into a glass, but this time you would not be so selfish. (you would share it with the world, if only so that though they would drown, they would drown smiling at the taste.) as if it could ever be so gentle.