Orpah, Running Free

“But Naomi said, ‘Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? No, my daughters.’ At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.” Ruth 1:11, 13-14

My girlhood was thick incense and blood,
sun-warmed clay, shined copper, and the Dead Sea
limestone, salt, and balsam. My sisters braided my hair
to the legend of the morning star who gave birth first to our people
and then to a long sword which lay upon the white shores.
It was there the first virgin daughter was sacrificed to Astarte.
My skin prickled with each telling, and at night I would dream
I was riding in Astarte’s living chariot, the wheels gliding easily
across the sea as the night wind gathered me in and the stars
tangled in my dark hair—was I the night, or had the night
swallowed me?

Oh mother of my lost husband, how I loved you
for your kindness and your strength, and how I loved you most
when you set me free from my husband’s austere god,
from stories of Jehovah’s frowning men. Now my heart dances
as a girl, as a young doe between love and death, with Chemosh
and the brined winds of Moab. I look across the sea
to the hills where you are with my sister Ruth—
I ask Jehovah to dry your tears, to give the kiss of my words,
my goodbye ringing salt and lonely, but my song returning
with your heart in the starling’s whistle.