The Midrash of Faxes and Feces [Today's News Poem, January 6, 2011]
In the hills of Carmel where the dust coats the carobs
There's a parchment of dung, there's a fax in the grass;
And the cypress boughs fertilize foothills of worship,
And the goats drop their pellets for herders to salvage.
It's the place where the priests wrote their poems with feces
On the coprophage flesh of the lambs of the desert.
From the droppings of sheep to the mouths of the rabbis
Through the grass, in the dirt, in that rapture of pasture.
They have gilded uncleanliness, called it a Torah,
And have culled from their flocks just the skin of the scapegoat.
Should one study the excrement; study the shepherd
And his he-ass, his she-ass—his breath and his writing?
"And let it be said, on this second day following the convening of the 112th Congress, newly sworn members of the House shall stand and read aloud the Constitution of the United States. And so it was Thursday, as lawmakers took turns reciting each verse and article of the document. Republicans in charge of the chamber rattled it off with missionary zeal, as if in a school civics class. Democrats pitched in, but with seemingly less ardor."
—JIM ABRAMS, The Associated Press, Thursday, January 6, 2011; 11:23 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/06/AR2011010602566.html
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