Shards

Shards


You always used the Balm of Gilead
to do your dirty work.
He that doth not work, shall not eat,
a hundred times on paper. No supper.

Fifty dollars, highest bid,
to recite His Holy Word.
Showmom of biblical proportions.

Your damning notes
met me after school.
The usual icy clout.
Be sure your sin will find you out.

Iniquity, the breach, to fall.
High wall, whose breaking comes
to crush an unfired soul.
Girlish vessel burst to shards,

cast off the poisoned balm.
Your rotten paste
could not bind the soft green clay
or make the wounded whole.

The word of the LORD.
Woe to rebellious children.
Oh, not your words, of course, but His,
still punishing me after all these years.


Willow, 2009

I realize this is rather a dark piece. Most times, I try to steer away
from addressing religious issues at Willow Manor. However, events
in recent weeks have prompted me to write this poem. I am a
devoted, spiritual person who worships God as my higher power.
But, I find it completely abhorrent when passages of the Bible are
taken out of context and used, for one's own devices, to intimidate,
threaten or control another.

This is not a new issue to mankind. Sadly, millions of innocent people
over the centuries have suffered in the name of God. But, since I
have unfortunately experienced this pain first hand, I feel compelled
to share. Recently, an extended family member sent me a note, in
which she states it to be a "warning" to me. It included this cursing
biblical passage, each verse hand written:

Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take
counsel not of Me; and that cover with a covering, but not of
my Spirit...

Therefore, this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready
to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking comes
suddenly at an instant.

And He shall break it as the breaking of the potter's vessel
that is broken in pieces; He shall not spare: so that there shall
not be found in the bursting of it a shard to take fire from the
hearth, or to take water out of the pit.

Isaiah 30:1, 13-14

photo: Shards by Willow