Humanist Voices in Verse: Helen Bennett

This week’s poem is by Helen Bennett. Helen is the author of Humanism, What’s That? A Book for Curious Kids (2005, Prometheus Books). Helen is president of the Humanists of Brevard and is a former high school and university English teacher, children’s librarian, and editor.

If you’d like to contribute original poetry to Humanist Voices in Verse, write to hnn@americanhumanist.org with “Poetry” in the subject line. Please send no more than three poems for consideration per week. 

 

TWO BY TWO

Though they came two by two
They formed such a crowd
That procreation wasn’t allowed.
So I didn’t miss anything
But my cell phone,
When I came on Noah’s Ark—alone.
Noah said, “What are you doing here?
Step aside!”
But the Lord said, “Let her abide.
We need someone whose humor is caustic–
Let’s try an agnostic.
No one else would believe what we’ve done
With this ark, where the greatest of victories
Was won.”
Humankind was destroyed by the most distinguished
Of Gods
Against all odds.
It was just in the cards.
So the zebras bore witness
And the giraffes,
Who came just for laughs,
So that infants in future millennia
Could still be amused
That mankind was thus defused.
Let the heretic witness
What God in His whim
Thought worthy of Him.

 

—Helen Bennett