The Unwise Wise Poem by Michael Shepherd

Proudly, fiercely, they guarded wisdom;
wisdom that had outlasted fashion,
the cults, the sects, the mass conversions,
the messaiahs, and the promises;

They had gathered this knowledge
in the days of garnered wisdom
250 years before that guy from Galilee;
and then around twice his lifetime upon earth
as numbers dwindled, they stored this knowledge
in a cave not so far from Jericho,
near the sea that died into a lake.

Discipline, ritual, held them together;
and cleanliness; the communal latrine
was 1,000 cubits or a little more, say half a mile,
from the city where they lived; I guess
some walked, some ran
there from Qumran
– except on Saturdays, when
they were not allowed to leave the town
and therefore did not defecate that day..
then on return from the latrine, their faeces neatly buried,
a ritual, totally immersed bathing was required.

Alas, if these wise men had asked the Arab Bedouins
they would have known that, had they left their faeces
uncovered in the sun, it would have killed
the roundworms, tapeworms, whipworms, pinworms,
which, walked back on their feet and thriving in the ritual bath, slowly
killed this community of wise men from inside,
so that only 6 percent lived beyond forty years;
eventually depositing their wisdom on scrolls
(how few men left to place them there, that solemn day?)
to be uncovered after nearly two millennia
darkly in a cave.

That is the story of Qumran. I guess it's one
for those who say, what you live by, that, you die by;
in this case, ritual.