Where Were You?

Let silence weigh the ruin of a man,
whose respiration was clean, whose hands were uncorrupt,
whose children filled his house like autumn wheat,
whose name was sung in streets with praise and gold.

The Lord had set him high upon the earth,
a living proverb, righteousness adorned,
a priest before the grit – a man of prayer,
who rose before the sun to make men clean.

But Hell is restless. Envy like a storm
that beats the sky with fists of molten hate
descended through the gates of heaven’s court,
where Satan spat his grievance at the throne.

“Your servant loves because his hands are full,
his barns unbroken, fields without a thorn!
Is he so faithful when the feast is gone?
Let famine bear its teeth, and you will see!”

“He will curse you…
It’s how you made them.
Not much more than apes.”

The answer came, an edict sealed in blaze:
“Take all he has – but do not touch his life.”

And so the winds of ruin woke that night.
The messengers arrived in winded waves
his oxen stolen, servants struck and burned,
his fields of grain devoured in tongues of flame,
his children feasting, drunk with joy and song
the roof collapsed, their skulls rent in the grit.

Blood spilled.
It’s how they were made.
A little lower than the Angels.

Ten bodies on the ground. Ten names erased.
Their laughter swallowed by the open mouth
of Sheol’s hunger. Not one cry was heard.

And Job, stripped bare, unmade, undone by grief,
clawed at his robes, and ripped the cloth to skin.
He bowed before the Lord who’d bound the stars
and whispered through the soot upon his face:

“I entered naked. Naked shall I leave.
The Lord has given. Now, the Lord has struck.
And blessed be the name of God Most High.”

The serpent, raging, festered in his wrath.
“His flesh is whole – what is his faith to me?
A man will curse when boils blacken bone,
when blood congeals in leprous, open wounds!”

The answer thundered back, the heavens swayed:
“Then take his health – his body shall decay.
But on his exhale, your hand shall lay no hold,
for he is Mine, more precious far than gold.”

And lo, his skin was split, his pith exposed,
he, fermenting about the city’s skirts 
his throne an ash heap, and his scepter shards
of broken clay that burst his weeping flesh.

His wife, unmoved, unbowed, in bitter scorn,
spat at the God who let the locust feast.
“Curse Him, then die! Be done with all of this!”
Yet Job refused, his mouth sealed to the filth.

Then came the friends, their robes as black as night,
their words like oil upon a flyblown wound.
“Repent, O Job! Confess your hidden sin!
The Lord does not afflict the righteous man!”

He groaned beneath the freight of human tongues,
his body wrecked, his soul bereft of hope.
“You speak of God as though you knew His ways,
as though the sun were kindled by your breath!

I tell you this – your wisdom is a lie.
For I have seen the Lord, yet do not know
why sorrow drinks me down like bitter wine,
or why the Lord has turned His face from me.”

His mouth avak, his prayers lost to the wind.
“O God, if there were one to stand between
to lay a hand on Thee, a hand on me,
to plead for man before the awful glow,
to speak for grit before the primordial One!”

Then hear me, God, if man may dare to speak!
Have I not walked in ways that honor Thee?
What law have I transgressed? What vow betrayed?
What charge is laid that I must break for free?

The wicked fatten, feasting on their spoil,
their laughter mocks the weeping of the just.
Yet here am I, with blameless hands unsoiled,
cast to the earth, ground under like the husk!

Would you  condemn the righteous with the vile?
Does Heaven sport with men, O Holy One?
If I am sinless, why then must I bow?
If I am guilty, tell me what I’ve done!

And then

the Whirlwind came.

It split the earth, it tore the fabric clean
between the clay of men and Heaven’s blaze.
It spoke. The mountains trembled at the sound.



“Who darkens counsel? Tell Me, let him stand!
What mortal speaks of things he cannot know?
Were you there when I shaped the birthing land,
when stars were hung and tides were bid to flow?”

“Where does the lightning wait before it flies?
What furnace holds the sun’s consuming core?
Did you decree the pull’s unyielding rise?
Who tells the eagle when to mount and soar?”

“Will you rebuke the One who gives you pneuma?
Have you an arm to shake the vaults of time?
Speak, grit! Declare your wisdom over death,
or bow before the storm and call it Mine.”

“Behemoth swims in clefts upon My hand,
the rivers swell and break at My decree.
Leviathan I formed to stalk the sand,
his jaws unchained, yet cowers still from Me.”

“Where were you when I spun the wheeling skies?
When first the morning sang its argentine canticle?
Where is the well where wisdom’s root replies?
And do you teach the serpent when to swim?”

“Who bids the aurora to crack the womb of night?
Who carves the path where raging waters fall?
Who strikes the hill and bends the cedars’ height?
Whose voice commands the hail to sound its call?”

“Who sets the feast and calls the beast to dine,
then sends the famine, blackening the field?
Who splits the fig and pours the ripened wine,
yet lets the worm devour what it yields?”

“Who tells the torturer to grip the lash,
yet gives the martyr strength to kiss the rod?
Who lets the widow claw her child’s ash,
yet holds her soul as ransom for her God?”

“Who hardens Pharaoh’s hand to bind the slave,
yet cleaves the sea to drown him in the waves?
Who speaks the word that makes the leper brave,
then strikes the priest who stains My appointed stone’s graves?”

“Who lets the infant draw his first, frail gasp,
yet gives the vulture scent of fresh decay?
Who slits the vein that spills the wine of death,
then seals the tomb until the Judgment Day?”



And Job, whose lips had waged their war with God,
now fell before the infinite unknown.
His soul lay ruined – naked, blind, and small.

“I put my hand upon my cursed mouth.
I spoke of things too wonderful to know.
You are the Lord – there is no other God.”

And then the Lord, whose voice had shattered Job,
who hurled the storm and set the sky ablaze,
stooped down from heights where angels shroud their wings,
and crowned His servant with a king’s reward.

He called the wind, and it obeyed His voice.
He loosed the chains that bound the weeping earth.
He touched the broken body of His son,
and flesh was healed, and grit became a man.

His children’s names returned, a double fold.
His house rebuilt, his vineyards made to bloom.
His sorrow spent, his hands were filled with gold
his days stretched long, and death was slow to come.

But not the same. Not as he was before.
For Job had seen the kavod of the Lord,
had knelt before the mouth of holy blaze,
had laid his worth on tablets made from bedrock. 

What is this man but vapor that chokes and fades,
a fleeting grit the hungering silence sways?

And who is God but blaze that does not pale,
whose voice unmakes, whose hands alone prevail?