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Page 47

Elijah, after Mt. Carmel

Emily Rose Proctor Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, Maryland

I.

I believed the Holy One would come blazing down to vindicate me. Maybe your god is dozing, I said, or on a beach somewhere eating dates and sipping wine. Perhaps he has suddenly gone deaf and dumb. Performance anxiety? Or is it constipation? Meanwhile, the priests flayed themselves bloody, cried themselves hoarse, tried not to think too far into the future.

When the fire came, it came also in my veins, and afterward, on my sword, I found the dark stain of imposters. So many fools.

For an instant, I believed I could call the Almighty down from Heaven. And I did.

I was capable of anything.

II.

When the fire has gone, the world goes gray, and the smell of violence is sickening. It’s enough to send you into the desert to bleach yourself clean, to empty yourself of everything.

I am a husk of a man. I cannot carry it. I cannot hold any— I want only the darkness of sleep to cover me. Let it cover me.

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III.

I wanted the darkness to be enough. But hands brought the cake to my mouth and then the water. Twice the stranger came, and my body let itself be fed, until it was strong enough to get its story straight.

I was the only righteous one left in all the world.

Like Noah. Or Lot. No, more like Moses… with Pharoah,s army fast closing in, only it’s the Israelites at my heels. It’s like a dream— everything is so familiar but later it will seem so very strange. And now I am approaching Mt. Horeb, and there we will have another showdown.

IV.

I want nothing more to do with fire. I know You could blow through here, lay waste to everything. And where would that leave us? Shake this very ground I stand on. Bring me to my knees. I am already there.

V.

For silence, I am unprepared.

Is it punishment?

Is it absence?

Is this what death is like?

Journal for Preachers

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No sound—

Or maybe a low hum… Is possibility a sound?

Or is this some giant echo chamber, empty, save me?

How long should I stand here waiting?

VI.

The Word, it comes and it goes. The world, it remains. Prophets are, it turns out, replaceable, like kings. And the violence, it too goes on, its dark stain spreading through the centuries. And there are more who are faithful than I thought.

Meanwhile, there is work to be done. The hand must be lifted to the mouth. The foot, it must be placed on the ground in front of the other one. And again. Out of the cave. Back into the desert.