This is Why We Took Archery at Camp – A Poem for Haftarah Shemini (Machar Chodesh) by Rick Lupert

You’d think, if you were the king, you
wouldn’t worry too much about your lineage
especially if you had a son who

as things went back in the days of kings
would automatically ascend to your throne.
Yet Saul, whose son’s best friend was David

who, if you know your history, is the most
sung about Jewish king of all time, was
deeply concerned the family line would

stop with him. Him meaning Saul, whose
son Jonathan warned his best friend, the future
King David, who hadn’t even heard the

name Goliath yet, through a secret code
of arrows, and, in particular, the way and
distance in which the arrows, would be shot

really wasn’t into the idea of David as the
future. I mean why spend so much time grooming
Jonathan for the Job if someday David was going

to get crafty with a slingshot and then be
given the keys to the kingdom? Not that
Saul had any idea about this yet. I’m just

writing this with the benefit of thousands
of years of knowledge – in particular the
knowledge that David was the future thing.

So arrows were shot, and instead of
coming ‘round the palace for the hope of
a feast, David takes the warning of his friend

(a real prince of a friend) and just gathers
up the arrows and probably dines alone
rather than face the death-wrath of

Jonathan’s dad. Good friends hug. Good friends
kiss. And the future king lives on forever
in the hearts of our people.

Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 21 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “Donut Famine” (Rothco Press, December 2016) and edited the anthologies “A Poet’s Siddur: Shabbat Evening“,  “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.