Proudly, fiercely, they guarded wisdom; <br />wisdom that had outlasted fashion, <br />the cults, the sects, the mass conversions, <br />the messaiahs, and the promises; <br /> <br />They had gathered this knowledge <br />in the days of garnered wisdom <br />250 years before that guy from Galilee; <br />and then around twice his lifetime upon earth <br />as numbers dwindled, they stored this knowledge <br />in a cave not so far from Jericho, <br />near the sea that died into a lake. <br /> <br />Discipline, ritual, held them together; <br />and cleanliness; the communal latrine <br />was 1,000 cubits or a little more, say half a mile, <br />from the city where they lived; I guess <br />some walked, some ran <br />there from Qumran <br />– except on Saturdays, when <br />they were not allowed to leave the town <br />and therefore did not defecate that day.. <br />then on return from the latrine, their faeces neatly buried, <br />a ritual, totally immersed bathing was required. <br /> <br />Alas, if these wise men had asked the Arab Bedouins <br />they would have known that, had they left their faeces <br />uncovered in the sun, it would have killed <br />the roundworms, tapeworms, whipworms, pinworms, <br />which, walked back on their feet and thriving in the ritual bath, slowly <br />killed this community of wise men from inside, <br />so that only 6 percent lived beyond forty years; <br />eventually depositing their wisdom on scrolls <br />(how few men left to place them there, that solemn day?) <br />to be uncovered after nearly two millennia <br />darkly in a cave. <br /> <br />That is the story of Qumran. I guess it's one <br />for those who say, what you live by, that, you die by; <br />in this case, ritual.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-unwise-wise/
