What Manner Of Manna To Gather?

One surmises and supposes

All surprises that shook Moses

Modest moderns might explain

Using scientific brain?


A burning issue of his day:

What kind of bush ablaze, blasé,

Nonchalantly stands unhurt

In alarming fire's alert?


The prophet hazarded no guess,

But logic tidies up this mess:

God cautioned distance with a shout

Because the scrub would rub him out...


Although flames licked, the bush would bite

And nip a wayward Israelite.

Bush, barbecued as smoked kipper,

Was fishy not but Juniper!


Since Jew nipper Moses had learnt

You play with fire you might get burnt.

His mother left him in denial

Only for a little while.


But now his story rushes on

Past plagues that plague an Oxford don...

Though God could cook good bush tucker,

How'd he twelve desert tribes succour?


What manner of diet had they

Along such a desolate way,

When sun, like a yoke, beat all day,

And scrambled their hopes with dismay?


They fried and they boiled in the heat;

They quarrelled for quail and poached meat;

Loud wailing quailed only to bleat

When tums rumbled more than their myriad feet.


With all but single file they marched,

However, nerve-bit nails endure:

Though fearing they'd be starved and parched,

God saved them with a manna cure.


He manifest a manna feast

So manifold, a manna field:

Snowed flaky bread rained without yeast;

A pitta-platter they could yield!


To grateful joy the manna calls,

And yet Jews murmured more and more,

Desiring more their manacles

With meat they'd thought more meet before.


As babes they cried for their tummies,

Though God gave water from a rock.

They hankered for Egypt's mummies,

To keep abreast with worldly stock.


"What manner of manna is this?",

Cried those who dished judicially,

But up to forty years some hissed

Who'd lapped it up initially.


At breakfast manna was snow-white,

And lunchtime's turned not cinder's black,

But what hue manna tea shined bright

Was dark humanity's great lack!


The manna stuck to a routine

Through route in which they walked as monks,

And life monastic quite grew mean:

Manna sticks in sour throats like chunks.


"Why would our God give manor to

Us nomads who all dwell in tent?"

"You need to mind your manners, you

Have mixed up manna with cement!"


One manna fact you're left without,

How was the stuff manufactured?

The answer's concrete as a doubt

That's sunk to depths and then fractured.


If moon be known edible cheese,

What of other cosmic litter?

Did then God plan it so to please

His flock, flotsam, with Jew pitta?


Well, that's a lot of food for thought,

But swallow not what's tongue-in-cheek;

The bush burned with same glory wrought

In holy bread baked for the meek!