Theologicals

Abstract

Theologicals Richard Kenney (bio) Face East Palms open, we pray.Napalm swamp of the sunrise:Name god again day. There The god is not there.And still, it casts a shadow,as in answered prayer. Another Question for God Q: Whyare you not more resolutely high-minded? You jape, you clown … A: I look down. [End Page 25] Necessity Re: rain, and the long theological stalemateconcerning its origins, a tale Talmudic in nuance, Homeric in scope: this was classic Lachrymismvs. vulgar Micturism, paired like the chromosomes of our tradition. At stake: the nature of heaven.At issue: the source of life, in rain. In the event, the conclusive stroke was dealt by the geochemists,who by the closing years of the last century had amassed data demonstrating the identity of rain and tearsto the 97th part, in a theorem which survived rigorous peer review. By contrast, undistilled urine assayedas correlative only to the 60th part, notwithstanding acid precipitates, adjusted mathematically, allowing for a salt-correction constant. The question was settled. Of course, rearguard Micturian diehards and tenuredprofessors with careers at stake and minds too inured to the old way of thinking continued to cavil. Attemptsto impeach experimental procedure failed. Die or adapt: [End Page 26] The science proved solid. And we were happy, were we not?Sure, though heaven knows one cannot count on nature to conform to human preference, none could denya private relief at the proof: the tragic mind of Adonai might henceforth be petitioned. The vulgar Eironwas cast down. Earth bloomed. Heaven wept pure thereon. ________ The droughts began in the second decade following.Crops failed in successive seasons. Fields lay fallow. We attempted public supplications, under open skies,the sadness of our plight sharpened by rhetors, our cries drawn taut by singing masters, our keeningspitched by poets to the asymptote of pity, razor-keen. Still God withheld his tears. We sacrificed.We burned barns, livestock, houses, towns. We revisited more ancient screeds. With stricken reluctanceunimaginable to any human not so fated, we looked into the red eye of necessity, and agreed to beginsacrificing the children again. [End Page 27] Richard Kenney Richard Kenney teaches at the University of Washington's marine laboratories in Friday Harbor. Copyright © 2018 The University of the South