Lot's Wife, and: The Great Ledger

Lot's Wife

Serious Sodom boasted its budgets, its lawsFor neither war no prophecy had soiled the city.Housewifely Sodom took care of its temples, its roofsWith a fortitude earned by not praying for rainAnd remained unsullied by ecstasy, riot, and hope.Honest Sodom spreads its ramparts across the plain.

I was born in a country of rocks and springs, far from the plainIn a goiterous village of folk with no silos, no laws.The cripple extends his cracked bowl, the idiot, grinning in hope,Sings and leaps under the mud shower skirting the cities.Hunger comes with winter; feast days follow rainAnd disguised as a sleepwalker, God sometimes walks on the roofs.

The angel appeared as I languished one night on the roofWho had come to save me from the savage city of the plain.Now I return toward my homeland of stone and of rain.He showed me the hidden door in the wall of their law.On this path which rises above the cityI can smell on the wind the wide spaces of hope.

Don't turn back. Don't listen. Abandon all hopeOf rescuing even that deaf-mute child and that dog. The roofsSeep beneath the foul cloud stagnating over the city.But who am I to be saved alone on the plain?An ass brays. A carter and his horse, knowing no law,Return toward what they believe is a promise of rain.

The trees sleep dreamless, long deprived of rain.The trees in the dimming light make signs without hope.Dogs frolic. A cat gives birth. The law's Base lava will wash over these roofsAnd the fountains dimly humming on the plain.Who am I to be saved in exchange for the loss of a city?

One God, true God, God of all the cities,God who is prodigal with or who holds back rain,God who exiled me long ago on the plain,I do not want to survive without hope.These harmless palm trees, unloved children, roofsUndefended, all bear witness against your law.

Lot's wife, the foreigner, looks down at the roofsOf all those loveless beings blinded on the plainAnd resigned, descends to be lost with the city.

The Great Ledger

They'll tell you that sunshine will follow the rain; they'll tell youThat a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Don't believe it.It is good that after the rain comes the deluge; it is excellentThat a bird in the hand brings two wolves out of the bushes; it is necessaryThat for not having gone often enough to the well The pitcher be broken.

Erase and start again. They'll tell you that after two 9s there's often a 36 And that last summer at Evian zero came up three times in a row. It's trueA colonel who'd gone to the École Polytechnique played the limit three times on a zero;Five hundred thousand francs; thank you from the employees, thank you sir fromThe accountants of the great ledger where your military service record has always Been noted down.

Campaigns under Charles known as the Wise, under Pyrrhus, under Ramses II,Under Hammurabi; nine wounds; two dead on the scaffold; A suicide;A life wasted as a magistrate's wife. As decorationsA child raised to hate everyone, a word kept despite common sense,Three defeats by stubbornness against all evidence, Dishonor and fidelity.

He says to her: So you stayed with him? Well, yes, sheStayed with him, got laid three times, of which the first Was spoiled for herAnd the third spoiled by him. But who knows on what grounds.That was part of her own service record. And by what rightDid he feel himself so magnanimous, so generous, for having forgiven her? She belongs to no one.I don't belong to myself. I don't know where I come from, I don't...