Obadiah asks Elijah three questions, “Is it really you…? What have I done wrong…? Haven’t you heard…?” —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.

The word of the LORD
sits up inside me—I turn

into a storm

—a blind
swelling of judgment 

and hope (your hesed 
endures forever). The blood

of the prophets alive
in my ears—though I hear

rain and rain and rain, all I can
taste is fire. Ahab, they say,

is searching, hunting (who hasn’t
heard his Jezebel’s threats? Shall I run
from Samaria's doom?)—

Tell your king it took three years
for the springs and valleys,

our deepest wells to return
to dust—now locusts 

swarm, now no one sleeps—Obadiah, 
when prophets hide

the word of the LORD retreats
into dirt and stone—I am

the only one left.

Is it really you? he asks—
the word of the LORD
waits 

like lightning, while I
compose a yes.

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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).