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Scattering Images
by Mel McEvoy
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The priest read hurriedly
The poetry of the Gospel.
Ideas like mustard seeds hovered,
spun slowly, dropped suddenly,
And withdrew out of the church
On a breeze.
The birds ate the meaning and
Drew in flight a musical clef sign.
Crows became black crotchets,
Pigeons a kite tail of half-notes
And starlings squiggled for the rest.
Winged sounds ascended in crescendo,
Rolled and dived to a diminuendo
Across the ledger lines of the towns pylons.
In this alive changing composition
Pigeons flew up the stairs
Of a full octave.
As the birds of the symphony
Broke to variations,
A seagull drifted alone over the rooftops.
Wings stretched out in an open note,
Lingering on the wind for four beats,
Sixteen beats; an idea with wings
Circling:" Love one another"
The priest read hurriedly
The poetry of the Gospel.
Love
"Woman, where are they?
Those who accused you,
Those who threw the stones of names,
Bricks as bruising as prostitute,
Slut, whore, adultress?
Where's the righteousness to murder
the vulnerability in all of us?
Magdalene, Lift up your head.
Rise from the ashes of your hands and knees.
See what I wrote in the sand.
To love is the life fusion in the seed.
Without the giving of this spark
There is no growth, no change,
No destiny, no eternity.
This sand, this earth, this life
Is a fertilized ovum
On the uterus wall of mystery.
We have to grow out of the embryo
Of isolation to be baptised by love
As the first born of a new creation.
I can’t condemn you.
You are more honest with the truth
About the pain of your loneliness.
You fought fear
And reached through the skin of risk
To touch some unity of intimacy.
Look over near the synagogue.
Can you see their eyes?
They are like Lazarus: dead men.
I’ve come to help unbind their righteousness
And set free those still unborn,
Locked in their amniotic sack of self
Imprisoned in the juices
Of their own fears
Do you know the sound of labor pains?
Its when stones of certainty
Are dropped
And pit with a thud
In the sand."
Faith
In the church
Worshippers watch the altar,
Elbows bone on oaken benches.
Come to seek salvation
Or caught in a net of convention
To believe in a kingdom?
At the altar
The priest’s face widens and bends
In the chalice.
On the mirror silver paten
Frosted finger-prints disappear.
An altar boy kneeling
Picks his nose somewhere else.
The bell shivers a light jingle.
Hands of the priest ascend pyramid above his head.
Fingers closed and clenched around the chalice stem.
A wave of wine begins to break.
Fingers clamp the white sun wafer bread
In remembrance.
Behind the man
A twelve foot wooden cross
Is bolted to brick.
On it a human body beaten
Butcher’s meat
Sags from hands nailed
To the conviction.
Near the open window
Beside the tabernacle,
In a shadowed red jar,
Caught on the brier of a wick
A flame of understanding
Struggles to be free.
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