Golden Plates Ode

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Were they fake news? Etched
on tin? Did the boy prophet
really find them sequestered

under a rock where the pageant
is held? We only had to wait
less than two thousand years

for the show to go on!, right
smack dab in the heart
of the Burnt-Out District

where a treasure-digging teen
unearthed a record no one
could decipher without the aid

of jewels in a breast plate
(such spectacles!) all taken
up to Heaven when the job

was done. How this became
the cornerstone of my faith
is anyone’s guess now taking

root. Why the redundancy
of Three Witnesses followed
by Eight, plates which had

“the appearance of gold”
which “we did handle with
our hands; and we also saw

the engravings thereon, all
of which had the appearance
of ancient work, and a curious

workmanship.” Divinity
embalmed in hearsay, this
was the start of many questions

I asked the Institute Director
at UCLA, our building housed
next to the Tri-Delt Trinity

out there still on sorority row.