Ezekiel envisions a trilogy
when no-one has yet agreed to a sequel.
Dust from the first Temple
still rises from the rubble
and he already knows the second one
which is barely an idea yet
will also come down.
Oh, prophet, where are you when
we all need the lottery numbers?
Couldn’t you tell them
not to bother with number two?
The construction costs
the wasted effort.
Safety regulations weren’t
a glint in anyone’s eye back then
so you know this second one
will cost lives. Perhaps the grand plan
is a cliff-hanger? I wouldn’t
give away all these details of
the epic conclusion of the trilogy.
We’re coming up on
three thousand years since
you laid out the sacred blueprints
and Temple number three
has yet to get through
the permitting phase. It only took
a couple of hand-fulls of decades
to get the second one going.
And this many millennia gone by
we’ve all forgotten what a cubit is.
I love a story arc more than
the average person, but at this point
I don’t think the funding is coming through.
I’ll be at the shul on the corner.
They serve bagels on Saturdays.
It’s stood since longer than me.