Fundamental Truisms

They discovered Noah's Ark
again. For those of you
who aren't religious: a giant wooden ship
capable of containing all creatures
in twos. No big dinosaurs.
In the evangelical Christian women's group
my wife, a Catholic convert, attends
for the breakfast spread, a local Christian college
professor spoke, citing Biblical evidence
only for small dinosaurs. Thus,
no T-Rexes on the Ark. Neither
any huge plant-eating whateverasauruses.
I want to know: what did the lions eat?
Did they go vegan 40 days and long meatless nights?
Fast? Because no pair of zebras or giraffes
is lasting 40 days in close quarters with famished lions.
Maybe God insisted all the animals hibernate,
a decree the bears took to immediately. Maybe the speaker
at the mom's group, who answered one question
"I'm not a biologist, but..." is right.
Maybe I'm no kind of Christian
without a blind trust that every word
of what they call the Word of God is true.

Steve Henn's second book And God Said: Let There Be Evolution! was recently published by New York Quarterly Books.

TPQ3