Will Not the Judge of the Earth Do Justice?, and: When He Was Not

Will Not the Judge of the Earth Do Justice?

Far be it from You to do such a thing, to kill the innocent with the guilty, making innocent and guilty the same. Far be it from You! Will not the Judge of the earth do justice?

—Genesis 18:25

Rocking, my sister talked, her new sonto her breast, Did you hear about the momwhose kid wandered from the path

in the Everglades? I listened, the room dark,the carpet soft beneath my back. The gator cameout of nowhere. There was the creak

of the chair, the sucking of her son, the rockingto a rhythm older than them both, until we were allat the bottom of a spring-fed lake warmed by summer

to thicker than liquid—though all that lurked werethe things all mothers fear: the growing up, growingaway, or, worst, not growing at all. Before the gator

could drag him under, she dove and shovedher arm in its mouth to the shoulder so her soncould wrestle free. Contentment rolled from her

in waves, though each crest was slicked with the story'shorror, with the blot of such possible loss. I understand now,she said, how a woman could do that. The same

slender moon in her window as the one scythingover Sodom when fire rained down and Lot fledwith his wife, leaving two of their four daughters

trapped in that city. No matter what her husbandsaid—or even what God commanded—what motherwouldn't look back, wouldn't wish the burning hers

instead? And she was not alone: Moses, too,was met with fire. Both turned to look again: one of them,the man, became a prophet; the woman, a pillar of salt.

Between her children and the world's hungers: my sisterwilling to put her body. Lot's wife unnamedso she could carry the names of so many. In every field,

on altars of hoof-matted grass, on the rough pulpitsof stumps, a block of salt. A block of saltfacing town: wind-worried, tongue-worn, essential.

When He Was Not

When brown froth scummed a cistern'ssurface, villagers threw in clods of earth,believing—dirt on dirt—they'd sink the rotto the bottom. Joseph's brothers threw inJoseph, into a dry pit scuttlingwith scorpions and snakes. Miraclehe didn't break every bone, thoughhis perfect curls were mussed. Maybeit was a joke, a wet willy in the ear, rope burnon the wrist, big brother kind of a lesson.He rehearsed how he'd tell on themto their father. But their words felllike dirt as he lay in the dim and listened:Pretty boy. Tattletale. Conceiteddreamer. In the middle of summer,a winter solstice: the shortestday, the longest night. They'd stolenhis coat. He shivered. Who knows how longhe'd been down there.                                          In the hours, the weeksto come, one brother would cry, The boy is not here!And his father would weep, Joseph is torn apart,savaged by a beast built in his father'smind. But for now, a cloud blocked the lightlike God's sight pressed to the eyepieceof a microscope. Splayed as a specimen,Joseph was rendered by that looking. Forthe first time, he knew le hitpalel, to pray,is reflexive, meaning an action doneto oneself, literally to judge yourself.Rot-sunk, abandoned, for a longbreath he was not, he was torn apart, before reseeing himself in God'spresence. And for the rest of his lifehe was a man putting himselfback together. A man with this pitinside him, with the knowledgethat everyone he met carrieda similar cistern: an emptinessthat doubles as a reservoir.