The Lost Millennium (a short epic poem)

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
Gilgamesh; 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

Read Dennis Siluk’s poem “The Lost Millennium” featured in the magazine “Al Mashriq” a quarterly journal of the Middle East Studies, Volume 7, and Number 27 December 2008issue. ((Syria-Wide) (Centre for Research and Development))