Truth Within the Whirlwind

There was a time, I remember well,

When my footsteps fell on a busy street,

And every soul I’d meet would swell

To tell of all my righteousness.

 

And in that time, perhaps with pride,

I’d lift my stride to expand my breath

And defeat the depths of death, which slide

Denied across my consciousness.

 

Then came the time that swung me low

And disturbed the flow of life.

It brought unlooked-for strife, like snow

That blows through summer’s wilderness.

 

The cold-toned chime my fortune struck

And shattered luck I’d kept so long.

I lost it all. What wrong had snuck

To pluck away my righteousness?

 

At least some crime, my friends had thought,

Must bring such fraught impediments,

But all the arguments they brought

Did naught but show their callousness.

 

I, in my time, felt justified

With words applied to counter what

Was said in every rut they tried,

Dividing them from truthfulness.

 

But in each dime they deigned to share,

A penny, fair with truth, did lie

And I could not deny that there

Was snared my wary pridefulness.

 

Thus, through the climb of our debate

I came to hate their sentences

And scorn the presences that fate

Sent straight toward my afflictedness.

 

Then, as the clime began to drift,

Began to shift with a stormy surge,

A younger voice emerged to sift

And lift the truth with righteousness.

 

He seemed to rhyme with what we’d spoke

But brought a stroke of wisdom new

Through awe, which nature’s clues evoke,

Awoken by his youthfulness.

 

Although his time was short,

His discourse sported hints of gems

Of gold that grew like stems, support

To fortify my humbleness.

 

Now, all is primed, and comes the storm

That fills its form throughout the sky,

And from some inner eye is borne

A warning through the wilderness.

 

“What hands could climb to place the stars

Or mold the jars that hold the sea?”

Such hands come not from me, so far

From sparking life from nothingness.

 

My brief life’s time is scarce a grain

Of sand that strains in endless waves,

Yet still your voice, which gave us rain,

Would deign to meet my lowliness.

 

And so, my prime response, to kneel

In soft appeal, may make it clear,

Regardless where winds steer my keel,

I’ll feel at home in humbleness.

 

I’ll try to rhyme with righteousness

As I hope I’ve tried before,

But without self-righteous pridefulness,

For in every way, you’re more.

 

 

I find Job to be one of the most interesting books in the Bible. For whatever reason, it just feels different from most everything else. I enjoy reading the debate between Job and his friends, and God's speech at the end is quite a conclusion, even though it may not seem to directly answer the question the other characters are discussing. This poem is written to convey an imagined sense of Job's thoughts, as the whirlwind comes and he hears God's words.