The Lost Millennium - A Short Epic Poem

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The Lost Millennium

[A short epic poem]

In a corner of the world

There was a land called Sumer

Whose waters once reached...

The Euphrates valley and the

Syrian desert, its high plateau,

As a result, the mud of two northern streams

Created a delta, with a pitiless sun

But rich was the soil, as anywhere

On earth...and God created man

And man here made his home:

This was the beginning, diversified

By marshes and reed-beds,

Rivers flush with their banks...

After the Great Flood, retreating

Waters and cultivating took place.

Hence, into Sumer the giants of old

Went, degreed a civilization, among

The dark-haired people...sporadically

Circumstances would promote social unity.

And there was Susa, Musyan, Elam

And the Persian Gulf--Mesopotamia;

And Queen shub-ad created style, and

Pottery formed, and temples were born.

And kings came and left, like King

Gilgamish; and thus came, gold vases,

And royal graves at UR, and the

Sumerian hymn, and they hummed

To the gods; and the villagers wore

Garments of sheepskins, and molded

Clay figurines, roughly chipped

From crystal, they wore necklaces

Of this kind, and beads;

This was the lost millennium.

They thought somehow or another,

Virtue was a necessity for the gods, thus

Came sacrifices and the daily ritual,

And spells that bind, hoping to remain engaged

To keep their favor, feast-days came and went,

Animals killed like flies, barbarism, yet

It drew the gods, and mans moral judgment.

Prompt, the gods exercised their power,

And man then started to build statues

To their likeness,

And now human sacrifice found its way,

With magic from the dismembered angelic beings,

Those who gave birth to giant children, and

So it was, an unusual phenomenon came.

Astrology was born, Sumerians now ruled

The skies; astronomical knowledge came

From the gods, and the gods (angelic beings)

Came from the sky: ecclesiastical beings.

Mesopotamia came under Sumerian rule,

And Ur, Lagash and Nippur honored the

Moon-god, and then came more public works.

And it became the Sacred Way,

And the walls of the Ziggurat [Temples]

Were built, sanctuaries, with an inner court,

And doors decorated, narrow chambers,

The holy of holies, shrines, sacred vessels;

It was an unusual phenomenon...

This day and age...platforms, brickwork, statues

Gods and goddesses, oil-jars; a lost dynasty.

#1522 10/19/2006