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🦋 Homesick like a pillar of salt
Herewith two magnificent poems about Lot's nameless wife.
Lot's Wife
by Anna Akhmatova, translated by Richard Wilbur
The just man followed then his angel guide
Where he strode on the black highway, hulking and bright;
But a wild grief in his wife’s bosom cried,
Look back, it is not too late for a last sight
Of the red towers of your native Sodom, the square
Where once you sang, the gardens you shall mourn,
And the tall house with empty windows where
You loved your husband and your babes were born.
She turned, and looking on the bitter view
Her eyes were welded shut by mortal pain;
Into transparent salt her body grew,
And her quick feet were rooted in the plain.
Who would waste tears upon her? Is she not
The least of our losses, this unhappy wife?
Yet in my heart she will not be forgot
Who, for a single glance, gave up her life.
from
What Lot’s Wife Would Have Said (If She Wasn’t A Pillar of Salt)
By Karen Finneyfrock
Do you remember when we met
in Gomorrah? When you were still beardless,
and I would oil my hair in the lamp light before seeing
you, when we were young, and blushed with youth
like bruised fruit. Did we care then
what our neighbors did
in the dark?
...
Cover your eyes tight,
husband, until you see stars, convince
yourself you are looking at Heaven.
Because any man weak enough to hide his eyes while his neighbors
are punished for the way they love deserves a vengeful god.
I would say these things to you now, Lot,
but an ocean has dried itself on my tongue.
So instead I will stand here, while my body blows itself
grain by grain back over the Land of Canaan.
I will stand here
and I will watch you
run.
...or of course there's the Gang of Four...
posted evening of Friday, January 10th, 2014
➳ More posts about The Bible
➳ More posts about Readings
I hate the first one
,but love the second
posted evening of January 10th, 2014 by leilani
Speaking of Akhmatova -- here is another of hers that I just love, one that I rediscovered today after many years of only remembering the Poetry in Motion poster in the subway in the early 90's.
ALONG THE HARD CREST OF THE SNOWDRIFT
Anna Akhmatova
Along the hard crest of the snowdrift
to my white, mysterious house,
both of us quiet now,
keeping silent as we walk.
And sweeter than any song
this dream we now complete—
the trembling of branches we brush against,
the soft ringing of your spurs.
posted evening of January 10th, 2014 by J
Here is Finneyfrock reading her poem.
posted afternoon of January 22nd, 2014 by J
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