Out of the Whirlwind

I crossed the fields of breathing men And found their virtues fed By harvest, shelter, name and blood By roofs above the head I watched them kneel while grain stood high And praise while children grew But strip the garden from the hand — What worship then is true? Take down the walls Extinguish the flame Leave only the man And measure the name Does the upright love the order Or only what it gives? Will the mouth still bless the silence When nothing answers it? One life was raised between two powers Like evidence in court No warning reached the house below No mercy crossed the thought Job The evening comes as evenings do The lamps are trimmed and low I know no hand has marked my door I know no coming blow Does the upright love the order Or only what it gives? Break the world around the faithful And learn why faith still lives

A man came running through the dust With terror in his breath He named the fields, the stolen herds The servants given death Before his final word was still Another crossed the floor His face already held the shape Of what was coming more Od zeh medaber — ve-zeh ba I alone returned I alone remained I alone have brought the word Of what the fire has claimed A second voice described the sky Descending into flame A third spoke of the eastern blades And numbered every name Job Do not speak them all at once The earth cannot receive Ten graves inside a single sound Ten names I cannot leave One messenger after another One door after another sealed The world did not collapse together It made each ruin individually real One messenger after another Until no messenger remained Only the man beneath the sentence And the silence that explained

The body joined the accusation Every nerve became a tongue The skin remembered ancient dust The bones forgot they once were young I sat where ruined vessels gather Where refuse knows no pride And dragged a shard across the shell That could not hold what lived inside The people passed and turned their faces As though the sight could stain A righteous man became a warning To every house afraid of pain Ashes and broken clay This is the throne remaining The body is a shattered cup Still conscious of the draining If suffering proves corruption Then innocence is unjust Afar va-efer Job Do not call this discipline Do not perfume the chain There is no lesson in the fever Only fever, only pain Ashes and broken clay No altar, no surrender I will not name the blade as mercy To make the wound grow tender

First Comforter The world is built on measured balance No innocent man falls Search beneath your former honor There is writing in the walls Second Comforter The root remembers every poison The harvest names the seed What appears as undeserved Is hidden justice taking heed Third Comforter Submit before the order Confess what none have seen The punishment itself has spoken Therefore you were never clean Job You build your towers out of reason To keep terror from the door You would rather call me guilty Than admit you know no more Comforters Order cannot wound the blameless Job Then your order is a lie Comforters Every fall reveals corruption Job Then explain the children's cry Job You came to bind the wound with judgment Because judgment is all you know

Erase the morning that received me Strike its number from the year Let no dawn return to name it Let no mother call it dear Let darkness claim the hour completely Let the stars refuse their place Let the night that heard my first breath Close forever on its face Why was breath placed in a vessel Only grief would confiscate? Why was shelter briefly shown If every gift was only borrowed From a hand that called it loan? Let the day be unmade Let its light be denied Let it fall from the chain of mornings And be buried outside time The grave would ask no questions The dust would not accuse The stillness would not dress as wisdom Or command the dead to choose Let the day be unmade Let the heavens lose the mark I do not curse the breath within me I curse the road into the dark

Enough of borrowed judgments Enough of second hands I will not answer shadows That pretend to understand Let the power behind the silence Stand before the ruined ground Let the maker hear the vessel Let the judge endure the sound I have searched the rooms behind me And found no hidden sun If justice rules the heavens Then justice has a face Comforters Who are you to summon thunder? Job I am the wound your law created I am the evidence you saw Put me on trial Open the height Set down the balance Bring truth into sight Put me on trial Let judgment begin If suffering proves the guilty Then show me the sin I do not ask for gentle language I do not ask the storm to kneel I ask the throne behind existence To answer whether pain is real Put me on trial I stand in the flame I will not call the silence righteous Only because it has no name

Men split the mountain for its silver They drag iron out of night They enter veins no bird has witnessed And carry buried fire to light They dam the streams beneath the valleys They map the roots beneath the stone Every darkness yields a substance Every depth gives up a bone But where is judgment kept from miners? Where does meaning hide its ore? What instrument can weigh the reason One man suffers, one man soars? Where wisdom hides No lantern reaches No hammer breaks No teacher teaches Where wisdom hides The proud return with empty hands The deepest shaft beneath the world Still ends before it understands Ask the grave Ask the sea Both have heard Neither will speak I dug beneath the laws of men I found their roots were air And far above the broken earth Something began to turn there

The Voice from the Whirlwind Before your fathers named the morning Before your grief had learned to speak The oceans struck against their boundaries And stars burned over mountain peaks No human eye observed the first frost No hand approved the raven's wing The wilderness required no witness For tooth and hunger, birth and spring The lion does not seek your verdict The wild ass knows no throne Creation is not built as courtroom With man appointed judge alone Eifo hayita? Foundations without witness Waters without law Night did not await your reason Before the planets saw You asked the height to take the stand You called the hidden power near Now measure what surrounds your sorrow Without reducing it to fear Eifo hayita? The stars refuse your frame The world is more than compensation And grief is more than blame

The Voice — I. The Storm Out of the turning blackness Out of the unmeasured air The answer came without descending Because it had been everywhere It did not offer human comfort It opened scale beyond the mind Min ha-se'arah Out of the whirlwind Not pardon, not blame No ledger of suffering No balancing name Out of the whirlwind The question grew small Not false, not forgotten — Too human for all II. The Beasts Consider strength without obedience The river-backed and iron-boned A life no harness has instructed A kingdom never trained or owned Will you bind what has no master? Will you lead the deep by thread? Will the chaos take your orders Because innocence has bled? Out of the whirlwind The old creatures move Neither wicked nor holy Beyond what your judgments prove III. The Measure Job I asked for law behind the darkness I asked the height to justify The answer was an open universe Too vast to call a lie The Voice Your grief is not illusion Your loss is not erased But existence is not narrowed To the chamber where you faced it Min ha-se'arah No reason for the ruin Only stars inside the storm Majestic and insufficient Too vast to be explained

I spoke as though the world were narrow As though its height could fit my plea As though the sea were made for judgment And every star concerned with me I called the hidden power forward It came in wilderness and flame It did not tell me why the children Were taken from their father's name The fields returned, the tents were mended New voices entered through the chambers But none were those already dead No number cancels another number No cradle balances a grave Restoration is not resurrection And gifts do not return what they replace Ashes before the stars A man beneath the measure Too small to govern all creation Too human not to question Job I withdraw the claim that I can hold The architecture of the sky I do not withdraw the names I carried I do not bless the reason why Afar va-efer Ashes before the stars The question still remains Not every truth becomes a mercy Not every storm explains the rain The house is full The chairs are warm The fields are green again But sometimes in the final hour I count the names I count the names