The cup of Eliyahu • National Poetry Month

The cup of Eliyahu

In life you had a temper. 

Your sarcasm was a whetted knife. 

Sometimes you shuddered with fear 

but you made yourself act no matter 

how few stood with you. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that he may come in.

Now you return to us 

in rough times, out of smoke 

and dust that swirls blinding us. 

You come in vision, you come 

in lightning on blackness. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that he may come in.

In every generation you return 

speaking what few want to hear 

words that burn us, that cut 

us loose so we rise and go again 

over the sharp rocks upward. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that he may come in.

You come as a wild man, 

as a homeless sidewalk orator, 

you come as a woman taking the bima, 

you come in prayer and song, 

you come in a fierce rant. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that she may come in.

Prophecy is not a gift, but 

sometimes a curse, Jonah 

refusing. It is dangerous 

to be right, to be righteous. 

To stand against the wall of might. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that he may come in.

There are moments for each 

of us when you summon, when 

you call the whirlwind, when you 

shake us like a rattle: then we 

too must become you and rise. 

Open the door for Eliyahu 

that we may come in.

by Marge Piercy

Courtesy The Poetry Foundation