Separate From Me
“Separate from me, ” said Abraham to Lot,
“our people cannot coexist with one another.”
Lot chose to live in Sodom, where it’s very hot,
and said to Abraham: “It really doesn’t bother
me that all the people there are dreadful sinners.”
Its nightlife influenced him to be the city’s chooser.
Some people do not have a knack for picking winners,
but do not pity Lot. Although he was a loser
who nearly fried to death and lay with both his daughters,
he ended up the ancestor of Israel’s kings,
when Ruth the Moabite caught up with Boaz, tortoise
that breaks its safety shell and flies with wifely wings.
This is a story that we learn in Aesop’s fables,
relating how the tortoise overtook the hare;
Boaz was a hare who didn’t care for labels,
thought anti-Ruth discrimination wasn’t fair.
In ancient Athens ostracism was ten-yearly,
a ritual that allowed return, recalling Lot’s
descendant who returned to Abraham sincerely,
by tying nuptial knots while cutting Gordian knots.
3/14/06
poem by Gershon Hepner
Added by Poetry Lover
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