Bezalel and Oholiab

        (Exodus 31:2 and 2 Chronicles 1:5)

Let’s say they were just a couple of Jewish guys
who liked to make things, who were often
observed carving chains out of sticks or making
intricate knots in the greasy fringes
of the saddle blankets, but obsessed
or preoccupied when a long stretch of traveling
kept then away from their modest craft too long

So when the bug guy came off the mountain
with all these wild stories about stone tablets
that were going to require a fancy box
to lie in and a tent to keep out the sun,
and then called an assembly of the people
and sent for them. Bezaleel, son
of Uri, and Ohiliab, son of Ahasamach,
and started to talk, stammering as he often did
till he got warmed up and started describing
them as having all this talent and being
filled with the spirit of God, they got
damned scared and might have run screaming
except their were, after all, in the middle
of the desert and not really in a position
to severe  themselves from community, so
in the end, they said OK but regretted it
often enough in the long weeks of stubborn
craft when the best they could give turned out
again and again not to be good enough--
when the gem stones threw off a harsh
light that revealed every flaw and it might
take a month of 12-hour days to learn a skill
that would allow one stone to fit with another
so smoothly no none would notice
and even the carving that started out in pure joy
had to be reworked until they grew sick
of every curve and whorl

                        and the people
coming by to drop off chunks of bronze and yarn
and lime and goat hair and hides of sea cow
(where did they get all this stuff) and Acadia wood
and onyx, and some of them wanting receipts and making
suggestions about how their gift could be used
and hinting that their brother in law could do as well

but sometimes late at night, feeling the material
come together by itself and their craft
carrying them like a wave, high, high
and then dropping them soft, soft
on a starllit shore where they slept, drenched
with joy and fatigue until morning, when they
awoke and found themselve in grimy
clothes with another day’s work ahead

until finally Aaron came, the one who didn’t
stammer and said, boys, it’s good enough
for a wandering tribe, you can work it some
more when we get to the promised land,
so they said OK and gave other other a weak
high-five, but  between themselves make
a solemn pact  that if the big guy ever
got any more ideas he could get someone else.