Miriam Talks Back

By Bonnie Lyons

Against men
I have only the usual
womanly rage. Even in
their accounts I am
a prophetess, but where
are my prophecies recorded?
I am silenced and erased,
invisible and unheard.

But my argument is with you
who spoke to Moses mouth to mouth.
After you parted the Red Sea,
who took timbrel in hand,
led all the women in music and dance?
Who sang “Sing ye to the Lord,
for he hath triumphed gloriously”
to celebrate how you threw
Pharoah’s chariots into the sea?
You who love songs and again
and again commanded us to sing,
who cannot have forgotten –
have forgotten.

When Aaron and I spoke
against Moses’ marriage
to that Ethiopian woman
and said you spoke through us
as well as through him,
we believed we spoke the truth.
We felt infused with your spirit.

But you heard only pride
and struck me – only me –
white as snowy death
with leprosy. And when
Moses cried “Heal her now,”
Instead you ordered him to shut
me out of camp for seven days.

Leprosy and exile killed my young self;
seven days, all alone, I mourned her.
That’s when I became the prophetess
to women.

God of Miriam as well as Moses,
I will never stop disputing you,
wrestling with you until
like Jacob’s angel
you bless me.