The plagues of Moses

Everyone forgot Sephorah, the Prophet's wife.

The heavens are unfolding like pages of a book,
My Lord.

Pages worn from time
Yet I say they are more worn from their daily reading,
Some are creased and some are shredded
From bolts of lightning and our impatience.

Just as blind as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

Not a single page did we know how to decipher,
Not a single line, not a single letter,
Simply because we searched upward and afar
When the alphabet was taught around us and everywhere.

Just as deaf as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

We did not know how to hear your voice
Distracted by a thousand and one false voices,
When everything was so simple and light
It sufficed that we bow our heads and listen to our breathing.

Just as hungry as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

Simply because we desired our neighbour's vine
And never blessed our wild weeds
Neither the globe that we should not have bitten
In a rush like the unripe apple.

Just as alone as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

Scattered about like grains of sand
From the wind that we blew with our cheeks,
Or rather like repentant orphans
Because they raised their hands and slew their parents.
Just as much in the dust as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

On our lips, in our lungs there is dust
And when we think we are flying higher and higher
The dust pursues us simply because we are idle or forget
To cleanse ourselves before every departure.

Just as homeless as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

Our huts collapse before being completed,
No thousand years could they suffer your anger,
Until, one after the other, we blame
The walls and the roof, and then the foundations.

Just as thirsty as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

With our dried and withering lips blistered as in August
We desiccated the sources of life one by one,
Sought and then created
Endless springs of blood.

Just as ignorant as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

Simply because we took the second step before the third
And said the first word after the second,
Thus, even our knowledge is nothing
But a correction of errors once made.

You are still everywhere
And we are nowhere,
My Lord.

We disregarded all the reasons for blood,
We forgot even the screams of grieving folk,
We forgot that the wounds of our foes
Would one day hurt even more in our breasts.

And they hurt in my breast,
My Lord.