Kingdom Born
Acknowledging John Milton’s bold efforts
From man’s first disobedience and our lingering parents
Led out th’ eastern gate of Paradise, our tale resumes,
To be emended in the telling of the War in Heaven, but mid-time
As th’ field o’ersown with weeds bears wheat-stalks few,
Mr. Newton is succeeded by Mr. Whiston on his chair
And discovery identical is made: Jesus is not God
Rings forth the Bible, a discovery labeled heresy
By the weeds, proud of their invention set in clouds.
Mr. Whiston speaks out boldly, gathering students
And promulgating the news, unaware two centuries remain,
By wisdom of the Maker of the Clock,
Until the Kingdom that is prayed for will be born.
The substantial efforts of this natural philosopher thuswise
Fall flat, the heavenly host seemingly amused,
Not yet to Kingdom duties set.
A century and a half plash by and Mr. Henry Grew discovers
A fact disturbing to the human heart, as a sense
Of eternity is found therein: Man is mortal,
Meaning people can be no more, rings forth the Bible.
Mr. Grew promulgates the news reaching the ken
Of Mr. George Storrs who is found by Mr. C. T. Russell
Who gathers associates to the task of probing the Bible
While angels attend their newly appointed duties
As the Kingdom that Jesus preached makes superabundant
The belly of the heavenly Woman arrayed with the Sun
And crowned with Stars.
Thoughts troubled and thoughts comforted by discoveries
Compounded in the minds of the investigators
Mr. Russell has assembled look back and reach forward
To discover that Jesus is not God, that man is mortal,
And that the fiery eternal doom, which is supposed to frighten
Vibrant nerves of little children into doing good, is best read in harmony
With Scripture, as taught by the Jesus who evoked the retrospection,
“Have you not read?”
Nebuchadnezzar eating grass like a bull amuses Bible readers
But wakes them to astonishment upon realization
That he figures the kings serving on the throne of David
Promised eternity, which promise seems broken
By Nebuchadnezzar himself, portrayed by himself
Munching on all fours until seven years pass over the broken king.
Thus, we do the math.
Times needing seven, yet finding not a seven elsewhere
To enumerate the vaster stretch to David’s throne,
Reveal themselves bit in half along with days
Ensconced in the Word of God, twelfth chapter placed last
By the mortal caretakers of Holy Writ, seeking release
As three and a half times are congruent to a cluster
Of activities which is in turn congruent to 1260 days, doubled,
Years then being marked by the days marked by times,
Suggesting the year nineteen hundred and fourteen,
And the prophecy is fathomed by Students of the Bible
Trumpeting with all their mortal might the coming inauguration
Of the King to serve upon the not-forgotten Throne of David.
The Sun-clad Woman of the aforesaid twelfth chapter vision of God,
Pregnant with a celestial boy, is seen agonizing to bring to birth
“The salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God,”
Whereupon, amid an earthly clashing of firearms
Like a field parched for water inveighing against
An unaccustomed cloud of rain by bursting into flame
And counterposed by a joy-in-pain rending of the heavenly air,
The Child is born, receiving the love and protection
Of the Ancient of Days presiding from his Throne
Of universal sovereignty above all thrones
As the heavenly Woman with the Kingdom born
Weaned and vested as it were hurries herself from the Despot
Of the Seven Successive World Powers to the sanctum
Called Wilderness and No Part of the World
Serving as the Place of Spiritual Sustenance
Where she hides for the Day-Years which tally the Times
Which iterate the restoration of a monarchy been waiting.
Thus is birthed the Kingdom of our prayers.
And then the songs and harps give way as do the tambourines
Of inauguration to the drum beat of long-awaited solemnity
As the newly-crowned King known as Michael to the heavenly army
Mounts the white celestial steed to go conquering and to conquer.
Mustered thus, the Army of Heaven now sounds the trumpet-blast of War
And heaven itself rings of spirit charge fountained by the clash of spirit steel.
Then ousted from the Realm go the self-appointed gods called rebel demons.
This War, met once forever, the War in Heaven,
Resolves dripless of blood, mighty in thirst and woe,
With Satan the chief of the demons and original manslayer
Undoubtedly sounding his hideous cry as he crashes to the Earth;
The ethereal flames of the sulphureous lake of the ones to be forgotten
Reserved on hold for finality; Satan tormented to the Earth, now
Besmirched more heavily than ever; Heaven never more to tarnish;
Satan’s curses bellowing from debased benightedness
As he thunders hard upon the dangling chains of the Abyss;
The angels singing loud the song of victory; The Son of Man
Empyreal breathing freshened air, celebrating victory
With the appointment of a steward; His eyes brightening with the joy
Of receiving the first of the promised ones, those held long in abeyance,
Thus embracing the dawn of his reward, awakened from their Sky-door
Alabaster Chambers, in earthly language viewed as his bunch of Brothers
Gamesome called his Little Flock of wooly sheep in need of care,
Also called his Bride-class tender and in love.
The frustrated dustwork of the Almighty renews enterprise
As the Eden-class of Other Sheep also wooly gathers under guidance
To cast an eye toward Paradise in loyalty.
Thus proclaims the heralded birth by its victory and faith is held
Established and the Kingdom gathers truths as well as followers, namely
Spirit-guided people upon the Earth roving through the pages of the Bible,
The Book, the only Book as said by the students of the Bible,
Giving voice to proclaimers of the Kingdom to this day,
The harvest season lengthening as the angels serve in Mid-Heaven,
Reaching farther than was thought, appreciated much by those
Now reached such as the one of little note who writes these words,
poetchilde, applying himself with sparks of synergetic brainpower
In a language exploited judiciously by seekers—sparingly by finders—
Of the Kingdom.
Thus Poetry ponders poetchilde, amazed and perplexed
At the punctiliousness of his performance, amused at the amiability
Of his accouterments, transcending the toppermost of his tower,
Who tows the line with joy and finds the time has come
To declare a consternation spritzing his studies, creeping into
His reading of the Law, ushering the trace of the Torah
To its earthly genesis. In studies prior to knowing Yahweh
By His name, the scholarship, half ignored, half treasured,
And half disdained, of one Mr. Friedman advancing and mapping out
The Documentary Hypothesis, updating the authorship
Of the Books called by tradition the Books of Moses,
Found poetchilde in favorable thought now thinking
The Hypothesis advanced to Theory.
Thus,
poetchilde offers for inspection by those who break bread with the Son of Man:
If Moses-the-Man had written words now lost
Save for their influence on later writers, would it really matter
If the words were restyled with breath of the Almighty to the words
We humans have today?
Might writers drawing on these ancient words, bynamed Moses
As members of what might be called the “Moses Class,” akin
To Jacob taking the name of Esau and John the Baptist known as Elijah,
Yes, might “Moseses” tussling in words tickled from above, one with another
Each in turn, have commenced the writing of the Bible, each later writer minding
Yet challenging the claims of ones before?
Should it be feared that Yahweh would have lost heart, throwing in
His golden towel, unable to breathe his wisdom and his vision
And his warnings into human words written in human fear; and awe;
And reverence; and wish; and hope; and cheer; the very stuff
Of the Bible sprung from human care?
Is Yahweh ashamed of how he wrote his Bible,
Daring any to deny he is God of the valleys and of hills?
Do the contradictions seen by critics bestir apprehension
That might nevertheless collapse to hidden truths?
Would it really matter if in the midst of its history
The Bible spoke in allegory to agitate the thoughts
Of searching ones as did Jesus in sculpted parables?
Should people believe the promise to be true that the tidings of scripture
Written before their time were written wonderfully for their instruction
In what comforts and gives hope?
Would the inspiration promised have been dead upon arrival
If God hid the names of human writers in their humility?
Would not the redacting of the sources have been as breathed
As the writing of the sources, creating a manifesto suffused with history
And transmittal striking the consciences of the ones who sigh and groan
For the shame of their rebellion against the One who loves them most,
Driving them to focus, ferret, and find the way of God?
Think, please, is this not the reason Mr. Friedman reads the Torah
In its redacted form? Does he not treasure the flower even beyond
The opening of its petals?
Might not this widening of the eyes be offered from above as sweetmeat
Garnishing with a snifter of brandy the conclusion of a lovely meal
Just before the earthquake cracks the roof to show a sun now dark
Upon deliberation amidst cries for peace broken by the wild-casts of war?
And with eyes in humble downcast, doffing his cap to the greater questions
Asked and answered by ones beyond his ken, does poetchilde know
The selection from the particulars strewn about the workings of the Kingdom
As it advances through its driven tasks?
These Moseses tell stories that unbeknownst to them reached
Centuries into the works of God. Scholarship well given and received
Observes the ties linking doublets as well as the ties linking
To the everlasting purposes of Yahweh. Thus the story of Abraham
Obeying the heavenly directive to offer as burnt offering his son
Comes to poetchilde’s awareness by the “Moses” of the tale called E,
And the “Moses” of the tale called J tells him that Abraham’s nephew,
A resident of Sodom, (perhaps at the wish of his wife or for security),
Offered his daughters as ‘burnt offerings’ in the course of
Entertaining two travelers who set aglow the love and regard
Of this nephew who felt alarm as the travelers fell sought for abuse
By wicked neighbors. Thus,
The E-scribed tale of Abraham offering sacrifice stands long
(with the story allowed to reach into the scriptures written in Greek)
As a picture of Yahweh offering his Son, a ransom requisitioned
For human sin, the son willing to die, the tale taking one step back
Under tactical command as Yahweh’s hand did not strike his Son,
Which the hand of Abraham in essence did, thus begging
A rounding out.
Might the J-scribed tale be the doublet rounding out? Cogitating
Through his initial contempt of the nephew voicing preference
For strangers over daughters, poetchilde asks why we even have the story,
Then sees that the tale completes, if allowed reach, perhaps, in the mind
Of poetchilde at least, the picture that Jesus was offered in like manner
As was the nephew’s offspring, namely, to the rabble
Of wicked men.
Further affirmation of this hypothesis might be found in consideration
That Jesus had been hung in the great city called in a spiritual sense
Sodom and Egypt—thus betokened in the book of Revelation—
Having been savaged by the J-tale rabble of Sodom as it were,
And having been slaughtered as it were by the E-tale knife
As the passover lamb of Egypt.
One further question troubles the heart of poetchilde, namely,
As the father offers up to death his son we wonder, would there not
Have been a mother, too?
Then J fills in with a thumbnail story poetchilde has hinted
With readers in mind who would trudge the dusty roads of old
In review.
As the Kingdom rules, events fill out the balance of the days.
Lagging the setting sun, the moon is born a crescent. Few see
In the brief time allotted. At full, in time marked, with hoop
Tipped on hinges aligned not so, coincident with message
To the nations . . .
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