Lot's Wife
by Anna Akhmatova
And the just man trailed God's shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
"It's not too late, you can still look back
at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."
A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.
Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.
From Poems of Akhmatova, by Anna Akhmatova and translated by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward.
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I've blogged this poem before, but it continues to intrigue me. What is it about looking back that endears Lot's wife to Akhmatova?
1 comment:
I've never understood why God smote her just because she looked back.
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