Elijah prays, "LORD my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?"—Anna A. Friedrich

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Stack Takeover: We’ve invited Anna A. Friedrich to take over our Substack for two weeks to share her latest poems that examine the lives of the prophets Elijah and Elisha through a poetic lens. Read more on her Substack, Monafolkspeak and in her new book Under the Terebinth.

They call me Troubler,
Drought-Throat, Brook-bent
Wanderer—I am

Sidon’s choirmaster, where (Yahweh—
why?) no one sings. We thirst

while questions like vinegar
fill our mouths—I wait
	
with David’s How long songs
winding a way along

my dreams, into the rhythm
of my step, my staff  (how long?)— 

Her home (what has been 
mine) sits silent at the table
of this tragedy—prepared 
by you? Her cup

overflows

though the valley
of the widow’s mouth 

is gullied out, edge-cracked,
sunken. On the bed

her only son lies dead. And you?

Your silence, Yahweh,
eats away at tender
flesh—if I lay down

this question, please
pick it up. Play the harp again 
for us, for her. I hear a call 

(you? LORD my God?)
to the upper room. The wailing
has begun. If I, under this

mantle, stretch out
myself across the boy—

if I lie down
into his death, tell me

who will rise again?

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Anna A. Friedrich is a poet and arts pastor in Boston, MA. She shares an original poem every Wednesday morning at annaafriedrich.substack.com, and her first full-length poetry collection, Under the Terebinth, is now available (from Wipf and Stock).