Ham

I am cursed. But boy am I hung. Some blame the African slave trade and the conquest of Canaan on me. Those poor fisherman from Crete. After the Greek-Dorian conquest in1200 BC and that these Minoans fled by sea to the Libyan coast and from there tried to gain a foothold in Egypt and failed and then went on to Canaan where they arrived just about the time that the israelites moved in. But they got their first! All of this just because I know when to call a spade a spade.

40 days and 40 nights. Actually I could not tell you how long we were in that ark. With all that animal excrement and the shit flying between our wives. Close quarters and all. But all those bloated corpses of man, animal, and beast floating by. Imagine seeing your pale friend drift by with his eyes pushed back in his skull. I just was drinking on the hill with him joking about the maidens of the town, and now he is on his way to Carrion without any coins. I threw him two, but they just sank before him. Carrion, if you can hear me, those were for Jesputha!We were a long time from coming to shore then. But what do you think the first thing this patriarch of mankind does. After the destruction of the world for all their wickedness, will this old man learn? He plants a vineyard. He sets all three of us, his sons, and our wives to plant grapes. To the extent we lost a couple of species of animals that were just hanging on. But I was called from the side of the yews and cubs of those mothers forgotten to time. For Grapes.

Grape juice was fine. Vinegar was handy. But very little vinegar did we ever have. Our father, your patriarch, would never let any wine go that long before he satiated his deep well of misery and regret. His tongue scorched the land and laid deep ruts into our flesh. Night, morning, and afternoon he sat at the casks. Never letting any of it to be bottled. Straight into the flask made from one of those lost yews. The sacrilege of life.

Granted he was chosen above all others to survive the deluge. The weight of knowing that you who is one that is far from perfect gets to survive. The feeling of being powerless, that a voice from above has deemed this to occur and leaves you to only concur. To keep the secret from all whose time was ending. He tried to tell some, but God had crippled him by a lion for his failure. Well I guess my father crippled himself for what he felt to be his true failing, letting them all die. And to him life.

But it still does not justify his behavior to us, nor to his wife our mother. Making advances on our wives in his drunken state. The sneers. The innuendos. I do not believe that our Mother’s bruised face is from the mule during milking. So when I found our father drunk on his bed without his raiment. With only Shem’s wife’s head scarf in his hand. I had enough and proclaimed loudly that our father was a drunk and a befowler of this earth, desecrater of the life afforded to us when it was taken from so many. How does he just lay there after laying with my oldest brother’s woman?Shem. Shem, the one who was striketh the hardest. How can he let this act go? Just to walk backward into the tent to cover our father’s sin. Just to go on. Just to go on.

Some may say I was asked to leave. But if truth be known, the Shekina graced my tents and my offspring. Through trials and tribulations, she brings us family and warmth through song, dance, and companionship. No one is turned away from our table or our roofs. We are brought to where all those who are lost in the flood of despair that tries a man soul to raise his hand against his brother. We come in vestiges of bondsmen in slavery where tyranny is rampant. We bring balance back. For who is the true leader more than the loving servant. Noah never learned this. He never put his knee to ground for his children or back to burden. All for his God and wine.

So some may say that I along with my offspring were cursed of days. But I say the curse is only with us as long as you fall from compassion to your brother. We are here to serve until the day that the lion sits with the lamb.

But your patriarchs fall from Abraham who profits from the sale of his wife to kings, Jacob who steals the blessing from his father and puts to the sword those of my kin after they have their foreskins sheared in accordance to his YHWH, David who helps an old man die before his time and dons his soldiers wife before he dies in the battle that was set to bring him down just on this account, Moses who slew thousands of his own kin for worshiping a cow in the name of Bal. Bal was called Adoni in Greece and Lebanon. Who you now call Christ, the lord. That came before Abraham, after defeating four kings , in the city of Salem. This Melchizedek, Moses slew his kin. You follow these men as your patriarch. Not the Christ. For your preachers sit you in your pews and worship YHWH of the Old Testament who brought on the flood and carnage and took my friend of the hill away. And if they ever open the New Testament, they read from paul’s mouth which is filled with YHWH filth and animosity of fear and control.

For I am afraid my kin will be in bondage for some time now, for you are far from freeing your soul to free our bodies. But don’t fear we will have the warmth of hearth, music of the heart, dance of the community, love of the embrace, and the patience of the mightiest cat to let you learn.