The Diluvian First Mother

PART I


I     The Tale
II    The Turmoil
III   The Turning Point
IV   The Training
V    The Ten Decades

VI   The Taking on Stores
VII  The Tenants
VIII The Terror

PART II


IX   The Tempests
X    The Touching
XI    The Trial Birds
XII   The Thanksgiving
XIII  The Taming of the Land
XIV  The Turning Out
XV   The Thirty Decades

XVI  The Twilight Years
XVII The Time to Rest

PART II


IX The Tempests

Above the wind the pelting rain,
for forty days and nights it fell
its furious rage unceasing,
the pregnant earth, in birthing pain
her amniotic inner shell
effused,  the flood increasing.

The constant noise on rooftop shakes,
cyclonic winds' advancing roar,
add to our consternation,
forbidden fire, no oven bakes
cold fare,  incessantly the pour
drowns out all conversation.

The days turn into nights, the black
of doubt's domain without some light
to comfort from despairing...
the lurch, that sickening attack
of fear's cold clutch...we float despite
a dread beyond comparing.

His perfection, five hundred feet
in length, became a modest toy
to tempests round it raging,
and motion sickness, indiscreet,
eight souls at once thought to destroy
with merciless rampaging.  


X  The Touching

The suddenness of silence shocked
the ear, as sunlight blessed the eye
for forty days forgotten,
the balmy sea and ark concoct
a soothing rhythm to decry
her tempests, misbegotten.

No tiller set the course to move
nor wind propelled the ark. Adrift,
unknown what destination,
no anxious thought asked faith to prove
before the fact, salvation's gift,  
I Am's propitiation.

A warmer wind  made rougher seas
and dried the throat of man and beast
despite poor ventilation,
one sideways slide made progress cease
the settling list each hour decreased,
we'd found our destination.

Confined within those frightful days
to pressing chores with no escape
made thoughts of land the sweeter,
to see the green, smell bright displays
far mountains climb, to seed landscape
or carve sweet smelling cedar.


XI The Trial Birds

Expectant days of quick release,
adventures in new paradise,
turned into months of waiting
while prison toil denied the ease
one day of rest provides for eyes
too long in contemplating.

For forty days we sat and rocked.
The keel's imbedding motion stopped,
but not the hated linger,
those lapping water sounds that mocked
our hope, dried up, their levels dropped,
the raven took a finger

and Noah sent it out to see
if paradise the glad report,
or were its guests impatient.
For days it flew glad to be free,
His word, though heard, ignored, "Comport
yourselves in life, consentient!"

The faithful dove when sent as well
returned at night to roost within
without a sign,  that waiting
Eden had prepared to swell
with new creation freed from sin,
His presence contemplating.


XII  The Thanksgiving

The olive tree does not grow high
on mountain slopes, but farther down
abounding warmth its preference,
that day the dove on even's sky
returned its twig, a thankful sound
was raised in worshipped deference,

of One whose worth all life must praise.
Exultant joy sought a rebirth
in hearts attuned to shout it,
the fearsome journey's endless days
complete, repopulating earth,
the haste to be about it,

His safety through the planned event,
the pleasure of His guiding hand,  
sufficient the assurance
that what He wills naught can prevent,
for those who choose by faith to stand,
He is the flood insurance.

The beasts awake, and add the din
of hungry weakened feeding needs
in joyous expectation,
they're given too, new worlds to win
to multiply their species seeds
without an exhortation.


XIII  The Taming of the Land

Three hundred twenty days inside
since He had sealed the only door,
the roof became a portal
upon a blighted world. Denied
a finished Eden to explore,
not born again, immortal,

man must wrench his promised land
of smothered trees, from death's wet grave
and start anew his garden.
Unlike the first with His command,
we knew autonomy would pave
the way, our hearts to harden .  

We first prepared to burn debris
from orchard plots and arbor sites,
then walled in their protection,
built birthing pens, and nesting tree
cut feeding spots near salted heights
for livestock use selection.


XIV The Turning Out

The birds were first to be released
when grain was broadcast on the fields
a harvest soon expected,
the reptiles next were herded east
to feed on fish, crustacean yields
profusion had directed.  

Small game and ruminants called clean,
domestication candidates  
from carnivores protected,
would need the man, time in between
the ark and their gestation dates,
were for new pens selected.

The last to leave had been sustained
by four grains mashed in olive oil,
the year since they were boarded.
A sixty day head start maintained,
non-predators first touched the soil
to gain reserves they hoarded.

The cat, the bear and wolverine
were made to fear the sight of man,
when from the ark extracted,
they fled on sight were seldom seen.
Compelled at times, as hunger can,
they from the weak subtracted.


XV The Thirty Decades

As if his contract at an end
the man of faith chose less to speak
than tame the land. Two vineyards,
his effort multiplied. He'd tend
the vines alone, the job to seek
their best, and prune the discards.
                
Those days all life was multiplied
from seed in soil, to sturgeon roe
and wives were no exception,
perhaps the ark had stultified
desire, unless the sun would show,
the womb refused conception.

The family grew and went their way
to follow greener pastureland
for flocks had tripled yearly,
but husband Noah chose to stay
his ark and vinyards reprimand
a past that cost us dearly.

On lower slopes of Ararat
Salvation's shadow higher up,
we spend our days together,
this fecund womb each year begat
its crop, unstopped, a desire cup
imbibed despite the weather.


XVI The Twilight Years

Nine hundred years to walk the earth
to relish sights, or taste and touch
the nature of man's being,
seem more that fair, to find its worth
and He who gives life overmuch,
despite our failure seeing.

It troubled him. On certain days
up toward the ark I'd see him climb,
as brothers he remembered
the flood destroyed, to offer praise
unto I Am, and pray they'd find
the peace that He had tendered

man on earth, that, somehow, where
the spirits rest of those now dead,
earth choices find reversal,
to join the living in their prayer
for immortality, instead
invoking joy's rehearsal.  

Though man and ark remain unchanged,,,
was Noah had six hundred years
that day of flood confusion...
it is the promise prearranged  
of paradise without earth's tears
that woos to his conclusion.


XVII  The Time to Rest

Before the flood I walked with him,
I stood with pride at his right hand
despite the heaped derision,
together, ribs and sheathing trim,
as one, we heard His last command,
that closing door's collision.

Those dread dark nights the tempest railed,
the endless labor to maintain
a practical salvation,
I was the one, when courage failed,
whose touch consoled, helped to regain,
for him, his inspiration.

The womb that bore his ready seed
was mine, their numbers through the years
are more than I remember,
And it is I, whose widow's weed
consoles, that put to rest in tears
God's man in his December.    

This story's end will now be told
by children of his answered call
ascending as expected,
had faith not heard His plot unfold,
assured agnosticism's gall,
the many would reject it.


              --H. Arlequin
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The Women of the Word
Poems From the Goober Tree http://nathoo.wustl.edu/goober_tree.htm