# Dust—All’s Yellow

The barren walls reverberate a screech

Of frantic ululation, words aflame.

The barren mother,1 desp'rate, claws to reach

For cause, for purpose, meaning—or for blame.

"Disease and dispossession, graceless death

Do not befall the sinless.  While I live,"

She says, "I hate you, 'til my final breath,

Excoriate your name, and not forgive.

Curse God and die."2  She never speaks again.

We eat our lentils silently and cold,3

And silently and cold she knows my pain

Is more than she can bear, and she has told

The bold and dread conclusion I must reach,

As muzzy-mumble sages nod and teach.

# Footnotes

1: Job's wife, too, is childless.

2: See Job 2:9.

3: The lentils of the near middle east are orange in color. Lentils are a traditional meal of mourning.



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