I Am the God of Your Fathers

by Austin Park

He came first, little fist around finger, wrapped firm.

The first of every month, with his mother, and then without. Resting his knees on the stonemouth moving silently but He speaks a prayer. A hand, his, leaves flowers to wither with and within the grass, and in his absence we watch, in day, the stars not unsightly, but unseen, in their incandescence invisible.

Nightly we anticipate the same thing - for their return as He does, first of every month, wielding flowers fresh and new every mourning

Author’s Note:

When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, He reminded him of the blessing He had promised to his father Abraham and all his descendants, including Moses himself. God’s faithfulness to this promise endured through generations of Israelites, and ultimately culminated in Christ’s sacrifice, through which we have also been claimed as “Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise”.

In this poem, I wanted to examine images of faithfulness we might encounter in our own lives - a son who visits his father’s grave every month without fail, stars that disappear during the day but that we can expect to return every night - as a reminder to the ways in which God continually renews his promises to us.