Poem

Magdalene Plus Ten



Magdalene

awakes this morning to a perfect sky

wanders beneath it to the market

does not, does not, does not remember Him today.



The men don’t watch her anymore;

that swaying grace now gone to fat,

the silken hair gone gray,

her shoulders sag.

Her siren eyes are silenced, avert their path

skipping over broad-shouldered barriers before her.



The rest,

of course,

remember:

the snap and sibilance

that hushes when she nears,

the eternal womens’ voice…

not today,

she prays,

please, not today.

Deaf to her, they whisper;

ten intervening years no balm.



She!—they say—why HER?

So many worthier than she,

such virtues, too many righteous to ignore…

…outrage that will not be soothed.

And look at her, they say, his holy one

today—unchurched and pagan, old and solitary,

such a waste of time…if He had taught ME, now…

Just goes to show, they say, whores will be whores…

…whores will be whores.



And Magdalene walks through their chill,

not a whore, not now

nor the saint they would demand.



They think she has forgotten

what she was and what He made her…

herself, she wonders sometimes

for what had she been saved—for this?

For bowed-head walks to work and market,

for coal-dark untouched nights,

for scorn?



They do not know

the ticking of the passing nights and years,

the empty rooms and hours, hunger

fed only on memory and scraps of miracle.



Beside her bed this night she kneels,

like them,

praying for a new messiah.



5 April 2004

(for WTW and KDC, and June)