The Coat of Many Colors

Sing, whence that much colored coat and whither,
That coat which saw deceit and love and hope,
That torn gifted garment which Joseph wore,
And which his father, Jacob, before him
donned, when he conned his blind father, Isaac,
Into blessing him with the great command:
"Be a blessing," which subsequently he
Did follow, marking himself with destiny,
Tragedy, providence, as well as guilt!
His mother, Rebbecca, had designed it
In spite of the stars' much accursed will
That he should be the father of greatness.
Alas, that he had cast the coat upon
His Son, God-like dreamer sprung from Rachel's
Womb, which barren, had opened to give life
To the world's most luminous face, a trace
Of the Face, which masquerades as surface,
But is really surface and pulse at once
And the dynamic otherness that calls
The I out from under itself to dance and praise
The grand Unrecognizability
Whose footsteps can be heard when the earth quakes,
Whose dynamic breath blows being, language,
Fantasies and ambiguities home.
For had he not bestowed and transferred it,
His most favored God-child would not have passed,
At the hands of his envious brothers,
Into the hands of other o'er-looked brothers,
The Ishmaelites, descendants of Abraham
And Hagar, a war-prize won in battle,
With the help of Elohim and Good Luck.