A Short Poem for Thursday's Discussion, August 14 2025! They Are the Ones Jill

0 views

Skip to first unread message

jill stockinger

unread,

Aug 9, 2025, 10:56:03 AM8/9/25

to Rennaissance writing Group, Nelson, Curt, pattis...@comcast.net, RSW Jerry Roth, Celia Mccauley, Kaolin Fire, Max Stockinger, Kim Knighton, Robert L. Smith, Jim Gormley, Gregory Tullock, Margaret Mackenzie-Hooson, Karen Arenson, Barbara Morrow, Dennis Morrow, Amy Fire, Kimberlee Wilson, Victoria Smith, StanleyO Zumbiel, Karen DeFoe, McKinney, Joshua B, Laura Rosenthal

A short poem for discussion on Thursday, August 14, 2025. Jill

Jill Stockinger

They Are the Ones

My house is a cabin of old, old wood.
Termites think it tastes good, good, good!
I think termites are not nice;
I bet they think they’re in Paradise.

My house crumbles around me as I speak.
Are termites very meek?
Humans say we’re civilization’s progenitors—
cockroaches and termites will be the inheritors.

(This was inspired by the poem, THE HIPPOPOTAMUS, by T.S. Eliot)

The Hippopotamus by T.S. Eliot
       Similiter   et   omnes   revereantur  Diaconos,  ut mandatum Jesu
       Christi;   et  Episcopum,   ut   Jesum   Christum, existentem filium
       Patris;   Presbyteros  autem,  ut concilium  Dei  et  conjunctionem
       Apostolorum. Sine his Ecclesia non vocatur; de quibus suadeo vos
       sic habeo.—S. IGNATII AD TRALLIANOS.

       And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also
       in the church of the Laodiceans.

The broad-backed hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.

Flesh-and-blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.

The hippo's feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends.

The 'potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Church from over sea.

At mating time the hippo's voice
Betrays inliexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Church, at being one with God.

The hippopotamus's day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way-
The Church can sleep and feed at once.

I saw the 'potamus take wing
Ascending from the damp savannas,
And quiring angels round him sing
The praise of God, in loud hosannas.

Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean
And him shall heavenly arms enfold,
Among the saints he shall be seen
Performing on a harp of gold.

He shall be washed as white as snow,
By all the martyr'd virgins kiss,
While the True Church remains below
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.
_______________________________________

And for those of you curious about Eliot's epigraph, I found this translation:
The passage from Ignatius of Antioch translates to: "In like manner, let all reverence the Deacons as an injunction of Jesus Christ, and the Bishop as Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, and the Presbyters as the council of God and the college of Apostles. Without these, a church is not even called a church. Concerning these things, I advise you to be thus disposed."