In The Wilderness Poem by gershon hepner

Of the wilderness, I sing
the conflict between priest and king.
Balak declared: “Let’s put on death row
Moses.” “Bad idea! ” said Jethro;
“Midianites, I must insist,
with Israel ought to coexist.”
Balak, a king, espoused the national
paradigm, which seemed irrational
to Jethro, priest of Midian, who
believed it would be better to
avoid the national paradigm,
because for priests all space and time
belongs to God, and should in peace
be shared by all in space-time lease.
Another priest synchronically
thought differently, ironically.
When he thought coexistence failed
his rule, make war, not love, prevailed,
for Phineas, when counter-phallic
was just as national as Balak.

This poem is a poetic rendition of the events described in Numbers 22-25, which I see as a conflict between two Midianites, Balak and Jethro, concluding with a resolution by a priest called Phineas who, according to the B. Sotah 43a, was descended from Jethro.

7/13/08