To the Handmaid of El-roi

" וַיִּשָּׂא־לֹ֣וט אֶת־עֵינָ֗יו וַיַּרְא֙ אֶת־כָּל־כִּכַּ֣ר הַיַּרְדֵּ֔ן כִּ֥י כֻלָּ֖הּ מַשְׁקֶ֑ה לִפְנֵ֣י ׀ שַׁחֵ֣ת יְהוָ֗ה אֶת־סְדֹם֙ וְאֶת־עֲמֹרָ֔ה כְּגַן־יְהוָה֙ כְּאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם בֹּאֲכָ֖ה צֹֽעַר׃"

Across the flat and endless parch

The salt pan stretched to infinite white

And the heat of day danced with Death

While my thirsty heart gasped for breath

Across the plains of death you walked

Barefeet never feeling the kiss of heat

Your robe of crimson caressed by gold

The image of a river in a land of cold

Across your face the ashes blew fire

The hair in your shawl together billowed sail-like

And those eyes that watched my creation's first step

Those eyes now saw me and such tears they wept

Across your face fell the antediluvian rains

And collected in the cup of such deep fingers

And kneeling as a penitent before this huddled man

You planted those tears in the cracking sand

Across the firmament the lightning crackled

And heaven was defenestrated by the seed in the sand

The tendril of viridian sprang from your sigh

And raised first-leaves prayer-like to the weeping sky

Across the flat and endless parch fell your rain

And ran together and crashed together and roared

Your song gurgled from depths, like a fountain sprang

And your river brought life wherever it ran

Across the space between the two there reached

A hand holding something more dear than water or life

Your fingers unfolded to reveal the heaviest thing of all

A kindness offered in answer to suffering's call.

"And he looked out towards Zoar, over the whole

of the plains of Jordan.

And he saw that it was watered well

and like the Eden..."

Gen.13.10