Donkeys Lead to More Donkeys – a poem for Torah Portion Korach

I have not taken a donkey from a single one of them

Back in the day
donkeys were like pennies.

And if you’re reading this in the future
(and how can you not be reading this

in the future, as I’m writing this
in the present) you should know

that pennies are regarded as
the smallest possible amount of currency

(if you even have currency in the future.
You’ve probably moved to bitcoin;

or maybe some other digital form of
getting what you want, that your grandparents

didn’t want to bother learning about because they
grew up with bitcoin and why did it have to change?)

[and furthermore, how bold of me to imagine
anyone is reading what I’ve written in the future.])

Anyways, Moses didn’t think donkeys were
worth much, and that even if they were worth

anything, he hadn’t taken a single one of them
from the men regarded as his inveterate foes

and therefore, those two (Dathan and Abiram
if you’re a names person) should get bupkis.

So they got nothing and, attention people
of the future! I’m hear to tell you that a donkey

or a penny, or a single bit of bitcoin, or whatever
you have now in your miraculous future

which I hope still has oxygen and trees,
may no the worth much; but if you invest that

first donkey, or put it in a donkey savings account
soon you’ll have a second donkey, and,

if you know your mammals, that could lead to
many, many more donkeys, and you could

someday be the richest donkey person
in all the land. That’s my wish for you.

In the mean time, I got to use the word
donkey ten times in a poem so I’m

feeling pretty rich myself.

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 23 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 “Hunka Hunka Howdee!” (Poems written in Memphis, Nashville, and Louisville – Ain’t Got No Press, May 2019) 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.