Milla Jade Kuiper 

A new genesis for the daughters of lot

Don’t look back at the cities as they burn.

There is nowhere to go but on.

Behind, blackening towers of sweet wickedness built

of old passion and sin and a putrefying, violent love

make their last clawing roars toward the firmament,

but the sulfur is raining from heaven, and the land is made barren in your wake.

There was no sanctuary for you in the land you left behind.

Your protector, righteous in the eyes of the Lord, left you

for the ruthless to devour, and called them his brothers.

You made your home in the mire, in the bountiful cities that scorned the Lord,

where men built idols in their own image and worshiped angels

with fingers filthy and hearts squalid,

but the Dead Sea is smoldering in the valley from which you run

and no olives will grow from the salted ashes of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Daughter, there is nothing for you in the land of Nod.

What you seek is not in the earthquake, no,

you will not find it in the fire.

Child, Adonai El Roi will whisper your name

with a voice gentle as lush wheat stalks rattling in the wind

and all the power of a blowing cold that grips your holy bones.

Though the mountains tower above you

and you run blind through the wilderness

the door will make itself known to you

and the Lord will not sweep you away.

Milla Jade Kuiper is a young writer who needs to work with her hands. She doesn’t believe she’s doing enough but she’s often quite excited to be simply alive. She thinks you should go look at the moon tonight. If you like her work, check her out in Heart of Flesh.