‘The Lessons of Lot’: A Poem by Adam Wasem

The Lessons of Lot

How long had my watch lasted at the city gate?
For days (or weeks? or months?) I’d scanned the endless fields
In search of some dim hope, some needed twist of fate
From what I knew was due, and soon would be revealed:

A fear I couldn’t share, not even with my spouse.
I’d been so mired so long, no light was left within—
In me, my wife, nor kin, in none of my whole house.
My lone last hope my watch, beyond the surrounding sin.

The stranger angels, I see now, were sent to test
And prove if that watch made me able to discern
God’s messengers, persuade the two at my behest
To let me keep them safe, and heed my dire concern.

Oh yes, I knew too well the dangers out at night,
Yet failed to see how much my neighbors had grown odd.
But the angel face of innocence made clear my plight.
Tonight I’d face a choice: to live with fear or God.

I’d known, deep down, our life in Sodom soon must end—
My daughters’, wife’s, and mine—yet pride obscured the fact.
But then, to see the mob, in torchlit rage, descend—
How does one go through that with sanity intact?

The butcher, innkeep, fellow councilors, the men
I thought my friends, their faces twisted in their lust,
Demanding, mocking, threatening; what a fool I’d been
To think these vicious beasts were neighbors I could trust!

I even offered them my daughters, whom they spurned,
Their baseness only maddened by their lovely grace.
Then all at once their vision soured to black. They turned
In blind confusion from my door; in that brief space

Strong arms encircled me and pulled me back inside.
The angels’ whispered warnings yet echoed in the room;
Sodom would be destroyed, wiped clean, and woe betide
The living thing that dared ignore this certain doom.

I slipped outside to warn my daughters’ two betrothed,
The two I’d sifted out as least disposed to sin;
They met my urgent knock disheveled, barely clothed;
My desperate pleas to leave with mocking, drunken grins.

Derisive laughter drove me back and out the door,
Admixed with the howls and barks of evil as it searched
For me as I slipped breathlessly from horror to horror,
Through awful scenes that in and out of torchlight lurched.

I never knew such feral sounds could come from men,
Nor knew, once home, just what it meant to freeze with fear,
Not daring move nor speak, our eyes transfixed on when
Dawn’s saving rays might on the windowsills appear.

The strangers rushed out first, we four in tow, their speed
And stealth was such we barely kept the pace. Outside,
Not even animals were spared their awful need;
Nor children. At last I understood in full what cried

To God for punishment. Beyond that cursèd gate
The strangers said to hurry, that only mountains’ might
Could withstand the hand of God, which now would not abate.
I knew I’d never reach them, and whimpered in my fright.

I lived God’s miracle of mercy that grim day;
A reprieve that gave leave for my city-softened legs to flee
To the one near town whose sin was small enough to stay
God’s execution: And all for me, to save just me.

“Don’t turn, don’t look!” I called, and then my voice was drowned,
As if the sun itself stooped down and smote the plain
With blasting heat and light, and one terrific sound.
The town around dissolved, bleached white as if with pain.

I’d reached the square before I dared the glare behind.
Against the fire, a pillared mound: my darling wife,
All that remained. Her dear sweet form to dust consigned
As with our flocks, our home, our once-respected life.

But hateful stares there showed we wouldn’t find relief.
We finally found, leagues past that town, a deep dark cave
Where we at last could rest, lay down our load of grief.
We all collapsed from days of having to be brave.

How long in our despair we hid, I couldn’t say.
I sank in loss, my daughters in their ended lives—
Ended before begun—from day to dark to day
Until we couldn’t tell if we were dead or alive.

My daughters finally gave me wine, to ease my pain.
I seemed to dream what couldn’t be: My wife returned,
But young and lithe, as when we met, before the rain
Of years and cares had bent us low. Before all burned.

My grief next day at how God’s line through me had ended
Brought wine again. Again I saw my wife appear
But this time with a hint my grief would be transcended,
a whisper: “Rise. Go on and live. There’s nothing to fear.”

And so we did: Rebuilt our lives, myself, my daughters
And sons born from my seed. So was their trick a sin?
They saw my loss. A child obeying what you taught her—
I can blame them no more than my own drunken chagrin.

I’d taught them both to act in love for family’s sake:
To use their wits to serve God’s plan despite the cost
So that, when left no choice, they’d find a choice to make,
and do what must be done for hope when all hope’s lost.

We’ve learned our lessons well: that pride in station blinds,
And evil not confronted will darken every door.
Yet God will save the righteous who’re watchful for his signs
And grant his saving mercy to those who humbly implore.

Adam Wasem is a writer and rare bookseller living in suburban Salt Lake City, Utah.