Reluctant Rogue Redo

Reluctant Rogue Redo? By Mark Stucky If Jonah, reluctant rogue of a prophet, had desired to visit Ninevah, instead of fleeing the other direction, how different would his story have been? More succinct but less interesting? No stormy maritime mishap? No hard-to-swallow fish story? No prayer in the belly of the beast? Just marching through streets, preaching his pithy prediction? Would Ninevah still have repented? Or did the whale-of-a-tale add conviction to his message? Jonah was not unlike me, a spiritual rogue of today, refusing to answer my call, enduring intolerable storms, crying in the belly of my beast. Like Jonah, reversing direction, might I yet find my path and emerge from the depths? (First published in Poetica Magazine, 3 March 2022. See also my poem “Whale Wayfarers,” telling two cautionary whale tales about hazardous opposite extremes in following one’s “calling.”) (Image by Ray Shrewsberry on Pixabay.com.)