Doesn’t it seem

that the bold claims of faith

asserting we were made

from clay and rib to meet

a holy need for friends

and placed in a garden

from which we were booted

because we did the one thing

we would not have done

if we hadn’t been told

we shouldn’t so that

we entered the world with

our firstborn named Sin

who still suckles at

our soured breasts,

growing fat upon our lean,

bending us down though

we strain to straighten,

believing we are only slightly

lower than the angels

yet queued for the gibbet

that is our due,

are absurd?

 

Consider the dinosaurs.

They neither toiled nor spun,

yet Solomon in all his glory

was not arrayed like one of these.

When the gates of Eden

clanged at our backs,

did we see before us

these majestic creations of God

receding in a sad parade

toward the unknown?

The clack and rattle

of dust-caked jawbones

shaped like but not

the same as ours

tell a tale we’d rather not hear.

 

©Dana Hughes 12.2.17