~
You were imprinted on my fingertips
written as dim memory
in line and skin
~
I kept your image at arms length
or balled it into a fist
A turning away
from the violence
As if there is no real death in ascending?
~
As a child
it is true
I was taught to expect some relationship
while being impressed into the feverish tribe
of Jesus watching
~
Before me
pale lipped men
created tension
bells ringing
Climaxing
with a tiny chaste taste
~
Who clothed me
in this rag tag skin of living words?
Held hostage
~
Until
I fall pummeled and wading
in the waves of this unexpected birthing
Free now to love you simply as a man
~
A man of flesh and bread and wine
who once lived to turn the world.
~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Artist: Caravaggio
Poetry of Light 
It feels like a bit of a dialogue between our childhoods these past weeks or days. I’m eleven years old sitting on the steps of the altar at Avila Centre. On weekends a few of us would go to the convent with our 60’s spirited Sister Sharon… trying to get to the bottom of things.
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Maybe it’s the time of year, Chris. This poem is almost two decades old now….from one winter’s burst of writing…. softened now by a few alterations. I found it in a file recently. It means something entirely different to me now. Less subjective… more personal. Don’t you just love poetry….
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Yep 🙂
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This time of year, it is deeply imprinted, both my ancient, pagan heritage, and the generations in the Church. “I was taught to expect some relationship” resonated in particular to me.
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So multi-layered Carolin…. I just don’t have a fascination with “godness”. I realized this imprint has kept me somewhat polarized. I have fought too long for being truly human. Now I’m realizing they are the same thing. Thank you!
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Love your poetry, Jana.
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Thank you Bonnie…!
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I’m rite behind you Jana
A little slow but there just the same
As Sheldon Always
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Thank you Sheldon. Speed is relative! …. As always, Jana
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finger printed
~
my roman catholic
guilt of
indoctrination
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tide pools to wade through looking for treasure….
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Excellent Jana. I find the second stanza particularly powerful. And ‘ in this ragtag skin of living words ‘ Wow!
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Thank you Mark…. the culmination of a winter’s personal work and finding an older poem surfacing…the circuitous path
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You take me on a rich caravan with each poem Jana. Thank you. No fast food versifying from your pen! There’s several days of eating here, a feast of unfurling. Following the warp and woof of your delicious words I stumble and trip over my own mixed metaphors…Well, what would JC do? Him not me 😉
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Thanks John…stringing words together tends to be both the most valuable mirror and also an encyclopedia of layered blessings.
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Your words capture perfectly the feeling of my early catholic school days through young adulthood..held hostage. I read my own hard truth but gentleness with your words, an awakening into thinking on one’s own.
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Thank you Audra….I’m glad you see the gentleness here.
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Yes. It is hard for me to be gentle
on those memories, on those days,
on those thoughts that still haunt and bind.
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Gentleness is probably the wrong word unless one sees gentleness in strength. “Gentling” is more what I was going for I guess…. it took this for me to get beyond the anger.
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Yes. Gentling. As one gentles a horse. It is work that we must do.
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I enjoyed the poem, but it left me wondering how you had been influenced in other ways by your religious upbringing?
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Good morning Paul. What a wonderful question! Thank you. The distillation of childhood experience into maturity covers such a broad plane of discovery and renewal, your question is enticing to the poet in me but daunting otherwise. I attended ten years of Catholic school so this imprint is indelible and has given me a wide window into exploring both the directives of collective culture and how I am informed by my own personal spirituality. But just for the fun of it, let’s see what first comes to mind….
St Francis
being transported by ceremony
sanctuary
daily devotion
contemplation
song
I think these must be the highlights….!
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The “again-being-ready-to-be-born”
never really ends, does it? It is
always there for us, whether we
want it or not, whether we know
whether we want it or not.
I had a similar education/upbringing in the church. 9 years of Catholic grade school, 2-1/2 at a Jesuit high school, and another 2 at diocesan high school.
It seems that any spiritual work that I do comes in three forms.
Deconstruction.
Reconstruction
or salvage work.
There is very little that is entirely free of that time.
Except perhaps the poetry. Perhaps.
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Good one Johnny… ” whether we want it or not, whether we know whether we want it or not.” It’s all still there for me too although…no wait. That’s not entirely true. What has shifted for me is my anger at how “it” has been regarded and manipulated. This aspect doesn’t have its hold on me any more. I feel I’ve been outgrowing the dynamic. So I’m beginning to take a look at the substance on my own terms and not from a religious perspective….to my surprise it’s a substance which apparently never left.
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I have been “outgrowing the dynamic” yes but i think that for me much of the anger is still there. i often don’t want to look at it, but yes, it is still there. Even as I outgrow the dynamic. I may not want to look at it, but the anger still has something to say to me, something to teach me, even as I learn to let it go. Perhaps this an aspect of the male dynamic as opposed to the female? Or perhaps it is just a marker that is not so far along the path.
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I don’t think there’s a measuring stick Johnny. I think my anger has taught me a great deal too… in all sorts of ways. For me growing up Catholic is generally an uncomfortable topic and besides…it’s all been said so why talk about it. Through circumstances though, this what? relationship? came to the fore and I’ve been challenged to take a look at it… surprisingly more subjectively.
You’re making my day Gravity…. you really are!
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happy to do so. it’s been too long since i regularly hung out in these realms.
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Anger is something that i cannot help but associate with the male in my life. Father, older brothers. So it is hard for me to unravel the two.
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That’s part of it for sure…all the connections. I has been for me. I’m 68 Johnny. This is rather a new development. I was happy enough to simply put it on the shelf of experience….way back because it just made me angry. And then one day it occurred to me that in just about everything this man talked about, he referred to nature. He brought it all back to the rhythms of and relationships in nature. And I thought…hmmmm. Perhaps I could subtract the collective crap and see if what is still there moves me.
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