be careful whom you call a bald-head

I found this, and it made me laugh. I forget what the assignment was, but it was for a poetry class in college, and was inspired by both Leviticus 11 and an actual exchange of letters one summer (the pertinent contents of which form the last lines of the poem).

I’ve always been intrigued by the … odder? (not quite the right word) … portions of Scripture. The things that grab your attention and make you go, “wait…what again?” I really want to meet Philip someday. And I think … well. We’ll be perfect in heaven, so I guess I won’t have to worry too much about being polite to Elisha.

I highly recommend my friend Rob’s post on geckos – or better yet, the post that inspired it. Rob’s has the Scripture passage that inspired my poem; the other has a whole lot of really cool things about geckos, and it totally blew my mind to realize how carefully God designed them.

Be Careful Whom You Call A Bald-Head Lest A Dead Gecko Fall On Your Laundry At Azotus
(a poem of identity crisi – for Christopher)

Leviticus 11 says that if
a dead gecko falls into
a clay pot
you
must destroy the pot.
but
if you touch the gecko
you will be made unclean,
and will remain so until
sundown
at which point
you have to do laundry
even though
it is not your fault
that a dead gecko fell
into your clay pot.

some kids from Bethel
once jeered Elisha
and called him a bald-head.
he cursed them
and two bears came
out of the woods
and mauled forty-two of them.

what if you moved
the gecko with a stick
because you didn’t have
time to do laundry
and someone else
weeks later
touched the stick?

Philip and the eunuch went
down into the water and
Philip baptized him. when
they came up out of the water
God took Philip away
and the eunuch
did not see him again
but
went on his way
rejoicing.
Philip, however,
appeared at Azotus
and traveled about preaching.

what if you were on a raft in a river
doing laundry off this cool little thing
which was hooked on the side of your raft
and you had a small campfire on which
you were cooking in a clay pot
on your raft
in the river
and all of a sudden a dead gecko fell on you?

—————————————————————

Dear Happy,
If two octopuses are octopi
and if two cellos are celli
then are two Saras Sarai?
If this is so,
then does that mean that
when Abram’s wife’s name was changed
one of her disappeared?
And if so,
did she join Philip at Azotus while
Abraham like the eunuch
went on his way rejoicing?
Perhaps he was rejoicing because
one Sara can only do half the
nagging of two Sarai…
Love, Christopher

—————————————————————
Dear Christopher,

What if a dead gecko tessered to Azotus but missed and landed on your laundry while you were swimming naked in a lake?

Love, Happy

photo credit: ©Depositphotos.com / Andy Heyward