More on: Old Testament

This place is an ark now.
Behave as you would on an ark.

Perceiving less than I can fathom, I name more than I can know.

By inadequacies of word, of form, I have reached for you.

In your abandonment you are beloved; in exile you are saved.

The left hand still flexes with the boy’s death, but on the right, a reprieve: the wrist wilts.

It’s been a while already since the last pair of animals climbed into the ark. An admirable job. The solitary ones have remained on earth, the unpaired, the ones marked with a red felt pen by God. The chill of the first drops disperses them onto the avenues slippery from the port and docks already…

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves…

SOME YEARS AGO Charlottesville, Virginia, was abuzz with the news that a wealthy Roman Catholic couple on an estate near town had built a private chapel for worship and had commissioned a painting of themselves in the presence of a resurrected Jesus Christ. My wife was amazed; what effrontery! I defended the couple, pointing out…