June in January
Candelabra of Magnolia –
So this is June in January,
Small, peeping daisies,
Ox-eyed and fresh,
Poking their heads through
Mellow, yellow sprigs of grass.
So this is June in January –
And what of the rains,
Which, with pursed lips
Saturate the ground
So that tawny owl calls
Make for a hollow sound?
So this is June in January –
What of the gardener too,
Who in sleepy-eyed stupor
Over zealous water renews
Between the waters
A harvested lost wish
And should you flow down the stream,
Stop for a little
To enter deep into the dream.
So this is June in January –
And the apple slips
First to the open lips
Of nature run amok.
Look! Look! Flying from a veritable ark
Is the coal black rook.
So this was June in January –
And the lass weeps her way downwards
Pointing to a new day.
Rest easy after the flood;
Dry your eyes of meadow-sweet mud;
So now this churns to an end
And speedily June sends God’s love
Down from above to all on the mend.
Noah's Ark: After the Flood -- Jimi Claybrooks
Candelabra of Magnolia –
So this is June in January,
Small, peeping daisies,
Ox-eyed and fresh,
Poking their heads through
Mellow, yellow sprigs of grass.
So this is June in January –
And what of the rains,
Which, with pursed lips
Saturate the ground
So that tawny owl calls
Make for a hollow sound?
So this is June in January –
What of the gardener too,
Who in sleepy-eyed stupor
Over zealous water renews
Between the waters
A harvested lost wish
And should you flow down the stream,
Stop for a little
To enter deep into the dream.
So this is June in January –
And the apple slips
First to the open lips
Of nature run amok.
Look! Look! Flying from a veritable ark
Is the coal black rook.
So this was June in January –
And the lass weeps her way downwards
Pointing to a new day.
Rest easy after the flood;
Dry your eyes of meadow-sweet mud;
So now this churns to an end
And speedily June sends God’s love
Down from above to all on the mend.
Noah's Ark: After the Flood -- Jimi Claybrooks
The Muslim account of Nuh ibn Lamech ibn Methuselah ("Noah") echoes the Old testament one but with some significant differences. Nuh spent many years preaching before he buikt the ark and collected pairs of all the animals. When he had persuaded all of the persuadables that they should accept Allah he was commanded to build a boat to save the worthy. Instead of only his own family, other believers were saved, but his wife was an unbeliever and did not join him. She was unnamed in the Qur'an but most Muslims refer to her as Naamah (in the Bible, Na'amah was Tubalcain's sister and is also identified with a demon of the same name in some Kabbalistic traditions). One of his sons (also unnamed but usually called Yam or Kan'an) tried to escape destruction by climbing a mountain but was drowned with all the other idol worshipers. (The "Kitab al-Magall" [Book of Rolls] also identified another son, who was born after the Flood and invented astronomy and instructed Nimrod; medieval Christians identified this son with Janus, the roman deity.) In 1498 Annio da Viterbo claimed that the Hellenistic Babylonian historian Berossus had mentioned 30 postdiluvial children born to Noah, including Prometheus, Oceanus, Pandora, and Thetis. The ark eventually came to rest on al-Gudiyy, near the headwaters of the Tigris river.
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