Okay, so it’s the 9th, but, hey, HOLY WEEK! That sort of takes precedence over poetry, dontcha think? Anyway, this challenge has its roots in a request I made to Ben and Jayce for topic ideas. While I have a whole bank of ideas myself, sometimes I like to get other people’s input on what I could write. It’s sort of a way of limiting myself to someone else’s expectations, maybe like an escape artist asking to be physically restrained, then working his way free.
So when Jayce threw out this idea (wait for it…) I felt as though I had my mission! He asked (something to the effect of) what biblical character(s) do you feel would be the most open to extraterrestrial life? Such a nice cross-pollenation of the spiritual and the nerdy could not go unexamined, so I immediately started picking potential candidates out of scripture – Ezekiel perhaps, with his “wheel in a wheel”? John the Revelator, with all of human (and, potentially, alien) history laid bare for his perusal? Perhaps even one of the pagans, with their experience with demons, might conjecture that they are from another planet? “Anakim” is a name in the Old Testament for a race (or ethnic branch of humanity) of giants, so maybe Anakin Sywalker is related to them? Okay, maybe that last one was a stretch, but after a good bit of thought, and working through a few different ways that I could phrase my fantasy based on the Bible, I came up with this free-form poem in the form of five questions. And I also thought of this challenge as well…
Since this is Poetry Month, my challenge to you is, in the spirit of Jayce’s suggestion, submit some poetry, original or otherwise (without violating any copyright laws!), that addresses both the biblical and the extraterrestrial (or at least the supernatural). This could also be a forum for discussing differing theories about, if there is life on other planets, what ways could that be true and still be consistent with the Bible.
And now, here is my poem. I’d appreciate your thoughts on it!
ABRAM’S STARS
Did Abram look up at that dark bright sky
And wonder if that promise to him
Stretched to those points of light?
Did he, an alien in a strange land
Think about what they could mean
Hanging suspended in the night sky?
Were they suns or stones to him
And could he anticipate that in truth
They were suns that indicated otherworldly stones?
Was he the originator of the Baptizer’s claim
That out of those stones
God could raise up children for him?
Could this earthly alien and stranger
Take an unearthly alien or stranger into his bosom
And call him “son”?
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