The Object of Conversation
- The Object of Conversation
They're talking about you, Miriam. They're talking about how you should have married and had a family of your own instead of hovering over the one drawn from water, long ago.
They're talking about you as though you're absent— as though no prophet, past or present, could count herself as blessed as any man who speaks, face to face, with God.
Outside the camp of jealousy in the weak site of leprosy, can you forgive your brother, Moses, [End Page 63] for having to intercede for you and pray when you'd prefer the other way around?
Neither forgiveness nor forgetfulness will come by welcoming death! The talk, the word goes on and on in Bible circles and commentaries, where we discuss how rivalry erupted, corrupting your pores with longing to speak for God— to stand alone and yet belong among great leaders and great prophets. We interpret you as we see fit— appraising what was right, assessing wrong, but even now, we sing your song.
A lifelong student of poetry and the Bible, Mary Harwell Sayler often writes on both topics, sometimes simultaneously, in poems about Miriam, Judah, or other Biblical figures. Her publishing credits include 25 books, 2 medical encyclopedias, a poetry course, and hundreds of articles, children's stories, and poems. Besides instructing other poets through www.poetryofcourse.com, she and her husband lead Bible studies in their local parish with a particular emphasis on Jewish roots in Catholicism.
