Friday, May 25, 2012

3WW: Flesh of my Flesh


     “Flesh of my flesh,” the priest intoned.  “Blood of my blood.  Take.  Eat.”

     Pinpricks crisscrossed my heart, searing in with tiny palpitations the moisture of my tears.  I lowered by eyes and raised my crossed hands.  Give me what you will.  I can survive anything.

     As a novice, I knew I could not verbally counter his insistence that all was for the best in this the best of all possible worlds.  Voltaire would have been proud of this papal servant extolling his greatest philosophical lies by his greatest philosophical detective Candide.  I would have been more candid in my assessment:  there is nothing that cannot be better, even if things could be worse.

     This priest here, now, wanting me to forget.  The sons of the desert do not forget.  Neither the daughters.  My son’s name is whispered in the air around me and burned in the flesh of my heart.  There is no forgetting, there is no forgiving.  I close my hands on the wafer pressed into my flesh.

     There is no forgetting.

     There is no forgiving.


     I get up and leave.  I will survive, but not with your platitudes.

     I will survive with the flesh of my flesh, and the blood of my blood. 

     I will. 

     I will it.

      I crumple up the wafer outside the door and leave it for the sparrows.


T his week's three words, brought to us by Three-Word Wednesday's (3WW) offers these three words for our prompts: Novice, Flesh, and Sear.  It was not my intent to think of the novice as a novitiate in the church, but rather as a simply layman (or in this case, laywoman) who didn't have the words to counter the priest's arguments, using novice as one that is young and has opinions mostly that have been given them by another.  At this point, the mother, in grief over her son's death, cannot accept the priest's arguments that all is for the best, and rejects that which she had been accepting blindly.  We do not know where this will lead her, but hopefully we feel the hopefulness of her resolution to survive, as seen in the recycling of the wafer through earth's food chain.



Thursday, May 17, 2012

3WW: The Spawning


The Spawning

I won’t fawn over you
As I sit juggling our expense books --
That egg was laid a long time ago
And hatched dirty and yellow, rotten.

Now I find etchings in the margins of our lives --
Coffee stains and report cards,
Slivers of blue that sparkle with hope
In the eyes of our only child.

I cannot tell her the dream I had,
So I pluck feathers from the nests of eagles
And hot-glue them to her pelt,
Dreaming of werewolves navigating the sun.

This week's three cue words from 3WW (three-word wednesdays) are fawn, juggle, and navigate.  I hope you've enjoyed my little tale, a little different from Little Red Riding Hood, but maybe not, maybe this was the denouement, in modern times.  Click on the link to 3WW to see more examples of prose and poetry inspired by these three words.  Most are by real poets.  Thanks for visiting!

Thursday, May 10, 2012

3WW: The Keep

The Keep

High in the keep
I shall not tremble

Lest I dampen
My stagnant thighs



3WW has chosen Keep, Tremble, and Dampen for its three cueing words today.  Although I chose a different definition of keep than 3WW had provided, I hope this isn't outside the rules.  Simply wanted to do something different from earlier posts, and being as I'm feeling locked at home today, what better image to relate to that a princess locked in a keep and foreswearing not to tremble, not to show fear, to stay cool and dry?

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

3WW: My Godly Pursuits


Today, Three-Word Wednesdays (3WW) brings us:  just, penalize, and generous.  I thought I'd address the dichotomy of trying to be just as well as being the one responsible for showing mercy.  Not only judges in courts must face this dilemma.... Only our mortal belief that our own personal G-d does it right -- no matter how much our small minds are incapable of comprehending the final and ultimate purpose -- can really allow us to accept the things that happen to us, where justice is not served or where mercy is not meted out to our satisfaction.  Can you imagine what it must be like, though, to have to be the one who decides?

My Godly Pursuits

Whether I am just or generous,

I must penalize that one.

Must I be righteous?

Where is my left hand

When I reach out to smite thee with justice?

Where is the mercy for the damned?

Whither can one show mercy and show justice?

How can mercy for one be justice for another?

How can justice for one be mercy on another?

Why am I the one to judge – to decide?

I want to be generous, loving and kind--

Yet I must be just, must penalize those I also love.

For without that, I am not a righteous God,

I cannot be trusted.

But if I am without mercy, I also

Cannot be trusted.

It seems that I

Am the one

Penalized.