As if heaven opened
in a downpour of scabs and curses
that washed my blessings off
and made me stand before you naked.
Loneliness became my kingdom.
I saw wife, friends, neighbors
turn away in disgust
at the sight of my festering sores.
You stoned me, God,
with news of tragedy and holocaust
until I lay my face buried in the dust
and stammered, How much more?
Yet in my deepest, most bitter loss
I was richer then than now,
with cattle, children, wife and friends restored.
When you beat me with a heavy hand
I served you truly even as I blasphemed,
you gloried in my tears,
and even in my bitter accusations you were justified.
Now you give it back in overflowing measure,
double the number of sheep and cattle,
once again seven sons and three daughters,
so that I can drink my fill of a father’s joy.
How can I be joyful?
I am riper now by three and seven deaths.
I have buried ten of my dead in my blood.
I have long since wept for everything that was worth a tear.
I no longer weep or laugh at anything.
And I carry my name like a sack of ashes
to pour on all the mourning in the world.
I am a tent,
my door forever open
to all misfortune, let it le4arn from me,
to all catastrophe, let it come and borrow tears,
to all punishment, I am the eternal witness.
How can I believe you when you
lack faith in your own creation?
How can I trust you, when just for the sake of the game,
you gambled with Satan
and put me up as stakes,
a prey to blind chance?
Wasn’t my simple reverence enough,
my bowing to your radiant face
daily as the light came up?
I was whole and full in my days of joy,
I was still whole in my pain and suffering,
but now I’m cracked like a clay pot,
because there’s no longer any sense to your will, Lord.
If you tested and punished me in anger
to raise me as a flag of misfortune
for the people to see and to recognize you in my pain,
so that doubters would fear
and be reborn and believe –
Or if you doubled my suffering
or multiplied it by a thousand times
until I understood
what you mean by what you’ve done –
But you all-comprehending great Lord
of joy and sorrow,
you want the sky’s blue and the valley’s green
reflected in my eye again,
you want the wailing and howling I had in me
when my body wept pus and scabs
hidden by a quiet, unassuming smile.
Do you want me to forget it all,
bind myself again
to things that stand in blind assurance
this side of every woe?
Now I play games with you.
I wear my Sabbath clothes,
my holiday face.
I bring you every kind of sacrifice,
burn incense on the altar,
give you signs to make you think
I’m the Job I was.
But I have come to the last boundary,
the border where there is no guard or watchman,
where good and evil have no power.
Through my suffering I have come down to fundamentals,
but now I am poorer, more lost
than in my scabbiness or loneliness,
for who can restore my greatest loss,
who can take your place my God?
(Rachel Korn)
More Poetry from Rachel Korn:
Rachel Korn Poems based on Topics: Smiling, Sadness, World, Faces, Pain, Daughters, Eternity, God, Joy & Excitement, Death & Dying, People- The Housemaid (Rachel Korn Poems)
- Crazy Levi (Rachel Korn Poems)
- Generations (For My Daughter) (Rachel Korn Poems)
- Passover Eve (Rachel Korn Poems)
- Arthur Ziegelboim (Rachel Korn Poems)
- Encounter (Rachel Korn Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: God Poems, World Poems, Light Poems, Sadness Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Faces Poems, Joy & Excitement Poems, Sense & Perception Poems, Friendship Poems, Pain Poems, Smiling PoemsBased on Keywords: accusations, pus, gambled, scabs, doubters, fundamentals, all-comprehending, scabbiness