My mother always whisked at me, stop whining! That’s what they all said, the keening call of my desires unmet at three years old, and four, and five. Perhaps if love had listened, eyes lent for one certain moment, my pleadings would have found their rest, my voice settled like cooling water in our stovetop kettle. Remember the urgency of that whistle? I shrieked like that. These days, I feel like a child again. I pout until I am sick, helpless with rage as I cry out, Deliver us, Lord! Spare us the trial! For some, grief brings tears-- grace restoring balance deep in the blood, bringing temperatures down. But not for me. I am intolerably hot. People say, nothing is wasted with God. The way I’m steaming, I fear I will evaporate into nothingness, leaving no one to whine the necessary complaints, Angel of Death, pass over! Free us, Lord! Losing that voice would be a waste at any age. Karen Jessee ******* Please offer your reflections by leaving a comment below, and invite your friends to visit Search and Know.
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Dear God, Sometimes, the impulse to fall face-flat on my bedroom rug overwhelms me. Desire in my belly and thighs brazenly hums its opinion, wants to draw me down until I lie close to you with a body I’m ordinarily too shy to share. It doesn’t escape me how much my embrace might resemble what so many faithful people choose to do on portable prayer rugs facing Mecca, the woman who washes her feet in Anderson Park’s public sink before praying on the sidewalk-- or the families sitting cross-legged on gem-toned carpets inside the Orthodox church at the center of town, sweet-talking you while gilded icons chaperone. These people know how to kneel. They go further, fold onto their rugs until their foreheads touch down in a reverence both body-bold and soft with grace. If I were to start falling for you, I would praise you at home putting my cheek on the floor where I know who I am. But you are everywhere. I might as well lie down anywhere, make a fool of myself in the grocery store, the library, the pharmacy-- anywhere that people go: your holy ground. How is it I can walk above what matters most without a bow, a touch, a blessing? Honestly, If I let myself go, I’d end up prostrate on pavement, lawns, all over town. People would notice. They’d point and gossip and give me a name: The Woman Who Falls in Love with God. But that hasn’t happened yet. When I go to my room this evening, I pray that even the low risk embrace I can give on my rug might transform me into one of your faithful ones. Not just I, but my body wants to know how to love you where you can be found and what to do about the ground. Karen Jessee *********
If you would like to receive notice of new posts, please email me at searchandknow@mindspring.com with Subscribe in the subject line. Where do ghosts live? Movies suggest the ground. It’s narrow there, where molecules cluster tight in the cool truth of dirt, rock and water. Perhaps air exhilarates too much. The pale puff of ghost dust which each of them are might be at risk of becoming, themselves, dusk. Even ghosts with their periodic forgetting have attachments which keep them tethered-- too much a mind to let go, insufficient else to remain yet clinging always to earth, diving back into the ground where bodies go. Karen Jessee |
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