Introduction to the Bible

I read the Poetry Foundation’s “Poem of the Day.” Today’s was particularly appropriate for me, as someone who regularly leads others in reading literature (for me, it’s the Bible). The title is “Introduction to Poetry,” by Billy Collins. I’ve reproduced that poem here, but I’ve replaced the word poem with the Bible.

I ask them to take the Bible

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into the Bible

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the Bible’s room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of the Bible

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the Bible to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.