Gomer's Complaint

Cross Currents, Fall, 2003 by Kris Lindbeck

The LORD said to Hosea, 'Co, Take yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD." Hosea 1:2

GOMER'S COMPLAINT

   Who is this man?
   This fool?

   He keeps me up, crying
   down on his knees by the bed,
   forehead battering the ground
   retching out between sobs "Oh my Lord"
   "God have mercy."

   Once I put my hand on his shoulder
   to comfort him (truly I'd have pity on a dog in such a state)
   and he jerked away, angry,
   like I was poison.
   I thought he'd beat me
   then, but he didn't.

   He told me to name my children
   shameful things,
   crazy things-
   Lo-Ruhama
   "Not-Pitied" Lo-Ammi "Not-My-People"!

   What does he expect?
   He never comes to me,
   as a man comes to a woman
   never gave me (or my worthless father)
   any bride gift.

   Just wandered in one day, skinny and dirty,
   saying God told him to marry a whoring woman.

   Whoring! What a filthy mouth he has!
   As if I don't get up before dawn,
   to grind the meal and spin.

   And if my friends should give me sometimes
   a hank of wool, a skin of sour wine (once a lame kid)
   Well, I work for that too, don't I?
   Wash their clothes, serve them a hot meal?
   Listen (endlessly)
   to how they're too poor to afford a wife
   or how their wives are sick, or just won't let them-
   better me-right?-than some foreign temple-floozy!
   But that was all before he
   got the name of prophet.
   Who wants a prophet's curse?

   My bed is cold. The patches on my dress are patched.
   He keeps wandering around muttering and howling whoring Israel
   will be stripped naked in the street for all to see,
   lost amid the thorns, left to die of thirst and hunger.

   Only--he's good with the children.
   Takes Ben-Ammi and Ruhama* on his lap
   tells them about new days coming
   days of grain and wine and oil,
   when there'll be a new marriage
   marriage like the dew, like the lily flower, like the
   evergreen olive tree
   between Israel and her crazy God.

* "Son-of-My-People" and "Pitied."

Kris Lindbeck received her doctorate in Ancient Judaism from JewishTheological Seminary, and her dissertation, "Story and Theology: Elijah in the Talmud," is forthcoming from Columbia University Press. She teaches Judaism, Bible, and World Religion in San Antonio, Texas.