(Caution: There is no pornography in this poem.)


"The opposable thumb cannot count
the fingers inserted into holes to
stop the flood, stop the flood,
stop the flood...

Forty days and forty nights it rained,
and then at last the boat was happy,
alone as promised, bobbing along on
the surface of the eternal sea.

Noah! Noah! Noah! Don't stop! Don't
ever stop the flood, stop the flood,
stop the flood...

But the bird did not return and now
the mountains are arising like scented
Ararat in the overpowering sun, hard
as solid rock and indifferent to the
frantic splashing of all the receding
waters, descending in earthly delight
into a hundred hues of green fertility,
all the way down to the green and blue
ribbon of the Nile, perhaps.

We could go and walk among the animals
but they already seem to be hostile for
some reason and show us their teeth and
claws and the gleaming points of their
long, curving horns.

The animals probably misunderstand us,
that's all, because they are so stupid
really, but we love them anyway and we
will follow them anywhere, even down
into underground complexes where we
eventually develop night-vision and
lose all sense of colour, although we
sometimes can remember when the world
was infinite, transparent, and blue."

02/07/2008