Noah

Genesis 7:11- 9:20

(1)

Imagine watching the sun
Arise,
After weeks and weeks
Of rain—

Watch it rise
Over the fields
Of faceless, shifting
Water.

Your landscape then:
The sun’s hot eye
Marking trails of fire
Across a liquid plain.

In dreams you hear
The drumming rain
Nailing a lid of silence
Over the weeping world.

(2)

After the faces—
Shell-shocked and stricken,
The screams
Soon silenced by rain.
The infants torn
From mothers’ arms
And the water
Razing, crushing, burying
Every living thing,
You never wanted
To relive those times again.
You scoffed at dreams,
At nightmares.
You planted a vineyard
And took your solace
In its fruits,

Liquid forgetting,
Liquid lamenting,
Liquid faith and hope and love.

Blessed be God, you said,
King of the Universe,
Who gives us the fruit
Of the earth.

Blessed be God, you said,
King of the Universe,
Who gives us the fruit
Of the vine.

The Usefulness of Daughters

Exodus 2:1-10

So Moses began his journey
In a miniature ark
Lined with loam and pitch
And set among the reeds.

As his Israelite brothers
Were pulled down by the waters,
As the Nile swept away
Their tears like a flood.

But perhaps Pharaoh did not consider
The usefulness of daughters,
The facility of grown women,
Able to conceive

And give birth to such a plot.
Take his own daughter, for instance,
Because of pity,
Raising all hell beneath his roof!