Don't Ask Job

 

 

 

Don't Ask Job

 

Job finds lilacs & pink roses

growing in the desert

Food falls from the sky if he mentions it

The dung of his cows turn

to lumps of gold

Job keeps his face expressionless.

He is a bore around the campfire

with his perpetual silence

He smothers his words with his tongue.

He watches his beautiful wife with indifference

He has learned to let go.

He is a kindly man & sometimes

he will almost love the new children

Caution holds his hand.

Don't ask Job what the problem is.

White birds flock to sing to him.

but he trembles at the song

Don't ask Job anything,

on his straight

& narrow,

 on his blessed obedience

& grand recoup of old losses.

He misses the old losses.

He misses a million things that fell

into the clutches of a contest.

His new friends smile on automatic.

None of them remember him young.

 

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Reviews

[Raef C. Boylan]

You painted a great portrait here.
I'm not a biblical academic fo' sho'...my only recollection of anything Job-related is that he wasn't satisfied...or was he the one who got 'where were you when i made the world?' in reply to something?
So god's on his side and makes everything turn out great...but perfection is boring?
Or maybe this is another Job?
Looks like I might be too dumb to get the messages of this piece, but i enjoyed the distanced narrative tone you employed throughout, and the ways in which you demonstrated his character for us.
Thanks for sharing this.
Thanks to Emily Burns for recommending it to me.

[Emily B]

Found myself here again. These are good words to come back to

[Emily B]

this is one of my all time favorites. . . I come back to it sometimes

such a perfect work

[bob, small b. aka invs]

the story of job is one of my favorites. i identify with him quite often. i've been through some trying times in the past years and each time have come through them in miraculous ways. so do i thank god for the miracles of enduring or get pissed off for having to go through them in the first place? it's something i'm working through. i think your poem expresses my concerns and, i do believe job would feel just as you describe.

[Rod Zinkel]

Makes me wonder why his new friends would be freinds. I like the original approach to a stock figure, it is not cliched. It's also a very intriguing idea that could be developed very well into a longer poem, or even an essay like Camus' Sisyphus or a passage of Kierkegaard's on Abraham, how after God spared his son's life he could never look at God the same.

[Solst Rapture]

Brilliant. I'm quite taken aback. This is the kind of work that makes sense of my real feelings - disjointed-buckled,bent-contorted, abstract. It was unusual, but very profound. Great stuff.

[Emily B]

Oh, Phibby . . . how often do we reach for the idyllic not realizing how much we would miss the reality of our pain. I feel more sad for Job in this state than in his suffering youth.

[W.k.kortas]

It is an odd and sad paradox; sometimes to endure life, we have to shut away the feelings and avoid the experiences that are, in sum, what make up life. This is brilliantly conceived and expertly crafted work of the highest order.

[Xtabber]

This is very clever. Someone called me Job the other day, so I had to read this! Enjoyed it very much.