Jephthah’s Daughter

For many days I awaited your coming,
walking with bells on, dreaming
of you and your voice, bronzed skin
holding war and wind, bold in valor
and laughter, my father, my anchor. 

Every time I saw what I thought was
your homecoming I ran,
do you not remember my arms
encircling your neck the day you left,
and my own whispered vow
that I would watch for you always?

Perhaps I spoke too softly.

You my idol from the moment she left us,
your face brave to the world but I knew
that it guarded a wounded heart,
only daughter all yours, I didn’t know
what that meant, the curse it carried,
you always said I did no wrong in your eyes.

Until the day you noticed
this mind you loved becoming
enshrouded in a woman’s body, like hers,
and I saw the memories falling over your eyes,
for the first time you went cold
in my presence.

I understood then that it had already ended.

Now I walk fading on old mountain ranges,
first and late kiss swallowed in Death’s
hallowed lips, and I watch the moon filling
and emptying, filling and emptying
over vast old mountains and I know
Time will not understand.

You will ask of my spirit, why did you go
back down the vast old mountains?
You beheld two moons fill and empty
and still you went down to him, to them,
oh nightingale sing my elegy, forever his
and God’s woman, eternally pure.

It was not enough time to see what I was not.

Oh voiceless nightingale,
sing my song,
for I am caught by his vow
like the ram in a thicket, not enough
to be delivered,
no seed in my blood, life offered
by unyielding priesthood
to a god unfed, mother betrayed,
I knew you too late.

I think you knew, my father, that it would be me. 

-s. rochelle