Abraham Sarah & The Three Visitors

Abraham, Sarah and Three Visitors

So easy to dismiss this aged couple

Their caravanserai invites you in

To circus tents of the imagination.

Let love unshackle your synapses of logic,

touch the hem of the Beloved’s garment.

Under this carbuncular oak of Mamre,

hospitality invites three strangers in

spectres from the beyond.

Abraham runs like a foolish old man

Stumbling, scuffing dust, yelling, gestures:

Prepare a feast for our Lords

waves a gracious arm

bring water to wash feet.

Servants! run servants, run (Pause)

May your Lordships rest awhile

in the shades of our sacred tree.

Haste thee Sarah, knead flour, serve bread

Servants milk goats, bring curds!

To the herds, to the herds for a lamb

– the tenderest one.

Haste thee servants- the kitchen, prepare.

They feast in deepening shades

The swirling of branches above 

black clouds billowing, roaring winds

through the leaves

Earth and sky break in sunder

Corruption and abuse will come to an end

Sodom and Gomorrah will be no more

A stillness settles the shades of Mamre,

Breathes a new beginning

the laughing one, a child

the mother of many

those to come will turn

turn to you aged one

father of the many.

Close your eyes, your mouth

Let your heart run into this wild

wander of a world renewing itself under Mamre oak.

The account of the three divine visitors is found in Genesis 18. Abraham and Sarah are in their old age. The angel says that Sarah will have a son in her old aged and that Abraham will be the father of many nations. Sarah overhears the conversation from the kitchen and laughs to herself at the thought.

The other reason why the angels are there is to announce the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah.