You Otter Build an Ark – A poem for Parsha Noach by Rick Lupert

Now the earth was corrupt before God,
and the earth became full of robbery.

I’m not sure if I’m reading the Torah
or the news. Or if all of this robbery

I see on the news is just the criminals’
attempt to reenact the beginning of times.

Just the other day I saw the water driving
up the road typically reserved for not water.

It took houses and confidently parked cars
with it. It took the eyes of the believers

by surprise. It took the word tsunami and
threw it up against the memory of

an ancient promise.

Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood

I appreciate the confidence but does it
come with instructions? I can barely build

something from Ikea without subsequent
days of blisters, what with my lack of the

right tools and my general preference to
hire people who know what they’re doing

to do the things I don’t know how to do.
And who am I to take the Earth’s resources?

What will the gophers do once I’ve
taken all their wood? And, as an aside

isn’t it amazing that, back at the beginning
of history, there were already gophers?

And I, behold I am bring the flood, water upon the earth
to destroy all flesh in which there is the spirit of life

This isn’t the direction I would go in
but I barely deserve a capital I when I say that.

I never liked that so close to the beginning,
they just finished setting the scene, the whole thing

gets destroyed. And all the people on it.
Talk about awkward conversations at the

neighborhood party – Oh, you weren’t told to
build an ark. Oh, can I borrow all your gopher wood?

and of all living things of all flesh, two of each you shall
bring into the ark to preserve alive with you

I can relate to this more than you know.
Every time an animal of any kind comes onto T.V.

a lion, an elephant, a friendly chicken, a family of otters,
I turn to Addie and say We need one of those for our house.

No is usually the answer that comes before I
even finish the declaration. I relate to God, the

lover of animals. The One who couldn’t go into the
pet store on kitten adoption day, without coming out

with a box full of them. In a way this is how I am
preparing for the flood. Otter chow in stock

ready for the waters to rise.

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 “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.