Job the Sufferer

Job the Sufferer

Blake Randolph

I scraped my skin
With pottery shards
and hoped that, perchance,
life under the sun,
the vanity of vanities that has
brought me to ruin,
might soon take a turn
for my benefit.
I read somewhere that the
fear of the Lord
begins Wisdom.
Have I been made wise in my terror?

To be lauded by the saints to come
“A man of faith, indeed”,
but faith has brought me
here.
Scraping my skin with pottery shards.
I wait for you, Holy One,
Acquainted with even my sorrows,
Wise in obedience, the hope from beyond
the sun. I wait for
you, Holy One,
to touch the leper’s skin
so I might not have to
scrape it anymore with pottery shards.

---

Blake Randolph
Poet

Photography by Greet Van Hootegem