Genesis
Judith Kunst
July 1, 2001
The night we married, making love, my husband nudged my left hip loose and I knew next day I'd be limping. He lay beside me like a god. I will not let you go, I thought, I will not let you go until you bless me. Truly, not until love felled me did I fall in love, my body opened wide, my thoughts unhinged, my coiled mind set loose to seize on an ancient story: God wrestling Jacob, Jacob limping, wounded, hip dislodged—no limping breath in his reckless prayer, Until he blesses me I'll not let this God go. Here was a man who knew love when he saw it, who clutched the loose threads of heaven and hauled, all thought tensed toward demand. Bless me. I'd thought those words some gauzy net of limping etiquette—not this harpoon loosed from Jacob's mouth, my mouth. Not until I hurled those words could I hold a love elusive as a husband's or a God's … How long must fierce words wait on God's response? Jacob (I know it) thought he'd missed his aim, sure such massive love would kill, or worse, leave him limping alone. Then God, not bound by words until He chooses, blessed him, tied his loose life tight to a new name, its loose translation One Who Strives with God and Lives. And Jacob slept. But I, until this long dream ends, lie stumped in thought. He is no god who set me limping. How does a wounded love love? Here in the dark love's been set loose, been sealed; and God holds His own thoughts till we awaken, limping, healed.
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