[Newspoetry] Signing for Jonah

[Donald L Emerick]

Signing for Jonah

My birth falls in the sign Pisces,
Which makes me a lover of fish,
Some breather of Aquarian waters
As unseen to me as air is to you.

So I hear the sea stories of Jonah
Or of his Greek brother Ulysses,
And delight to focus on PoseiDon
And his underwater murky realm.

SeaGods, and dripping devotees,
Swell, splash and churn restlessly,
Ebbing up and down, tidal moods
Epoch stormings and becalmings.

My minister says there is a sign
Of Jonah that his own God gives.
Curiously, he connects this sign
To a strange death's resurrection.

I wiggled and squirmed in my pew
As I heard him Jonah misconstrue.
Did he not know that a Jonah tale
Swallows more than errant's whale?

Let me start, then, as Jonah did,
Before he fled from God and hid.
Jonah was happy to be preaching
To the people of the land he loved.

He was good; God noticed his word
And ordered Jonah to go to Nineveh.
But Jonah did not love Ninevehians
And wanted to say nothing to them.

He chose an ocean cruise vacation
To escape from a task laid on him
As if he were some slavish servant
But found that his SeaGod sees all.

Waves billowed up as waters roared,
"Lighten the ship of what's on board,"
Cried cringing crew to cruise captain.
They pumped bilge on dumped cargo.

Still foundered the ship in mountains
That rose and fell about the lost ship
As if it starred in some Perfect Storm
Opposed to its placid progress wake.

A lifeboat game came up on deck,
"Toss sacrifice to Rulers of Waves
Or be scattered in a broken wreck."
And then they found Jonah asleep.

There he was, napping thru storm,
Having no care for all this blubber
Of dangers emergent from power
That punishes many to get at one.

Heaved they, then, him overboard
For man knows Gods, SeaGods,
Desire and demand your sacrifice
Of someone else as sacred cause.

Jonah got sucked down a whale
And what he did there is unsaid
But, after three days, that big fish
Vomited Jonah out near Nineveh.

So, SeaGod drafted Jonah in spite
Of Jonah's conscientious objections
To serving in a war in a foreign land,
Telling natives: repent or be damned.

You would have thought Jonah happy
When Nineveh followed prophet decree.
But, instead he grew grumpy, groused
"Could you blast them just once for me?"

I could talk about Jonah's shade gourd,
And how he let God grow it and ruin it.
I could talk about the whore for wife
That Jonah took to prove God's points.

So, what is the hearth sign of Jonah?
There are so many signs from Jonah,
That a person could find almost any
Match between events will thus align.

Fish are slippery, scaly or smooth.
Fish are flippery in fine finny moves.
The sign of any fish is a fishy sign
That defensively says "No fishing."

And that's what Jonah wanted, too.
He and Ulysses were dragged along
On high seas and tides by fickle fools
Of Gods fighting proxy wars, humanly.

<I get tired of the Gods hooking me up
Like some piece of chum crumb bait.
I'll wriggle off from that Captain's hook --
Swim freely in waters never too deep.>

Thanks for swimming along,
Listening for sonarchy echo,
Donald L Emerick