Key: A

I’m really keen to be involved in “Emergence” but don’t have a lot of time to work on new material at the moment. I uploaded ‘Baptism’ about a year ago but I’ve just reworked it a bit and hopefully improved it. I think it fits the Emergence theme well, even though it doesn’t include the word ‘Emergence’. I hope it is useful for this project.

Baptism

She could not imagine there was a heaven.
It was nothing she could hold in her vision
and climb to through dreams.
She could not trust the untouchable
the reality she could never know.
There were only loose threads of past and present
which she twisted on stretched-out fingers
to weave into days she could touch and feel;
and voices in the tortuous void, that did not resemble speech;
and faceless, nameless sounds she must resist like early death.
They came too soon, so that she did not hear
only listened to the confusion she felt.

In the room of invisible faces she must walk alone
and feel their eyes upon her, knowing they could see her desire
like the full-blown rose dropping its garments.
Knowing she would fall into the arms of a stranger
and wake to discover she had given too much of her self.

She remembered the harvest festivals of her childhood,
the palm leaves they wove into crosses
and the stained glass window.
She could press her eye into a red segment
and imagine heaven looked that way.


When she remembered this she did not cry
but went on calmly, tending the soil, weeding the flowerbed,
kissing the faces her children held forward to be blessed.
But could not respond, nor imagine herself intangible as air.
Then, walking in the garden, she met a man
who was not a stranger but was clothed in shadows
and she stood in the clear light trembling -
it was enough for her. It was enough.
Until she found that her hands could not stroke his golden skin
for they were unclean, she had murdered love
and her tears where they fell on his grave
became tendrils of ivy, twisting out of the soil
to cover the damp mound she felt warm beneath her body.
Was this the false prophet she had buried ?
She could not know for it could not be known
but the voices, more clearly defined now,
slowly became a single sound,
a soft bell-like whisper, she felt beneath her skin.
It was in her, leading her on.
She imagined wide plains edging toward desert.
Her senses could fill that space, all heat and airy light.
She could gather up a silence and hold it to her breast.
It did not matter that she was thirsty,
that her feet were blistered. She felt no pain.
The fiery sand beneath her was water -
the chaste and holy water for which she had thirsted.

It surrounded her. She let it flow through her,
surrendered to this new baptism
like a ripple, the heart beat of water,
had wanted this without knowing it was this she craved.

Her new face drank the sun’s gold and her hair caught the stars.
She felt a universe inside her. The moon at her feet gathered
the white robe and silvered the path ahead.

It was this she had wanted -
to stand between heaven and earth
and give birth to herself.

© Deb Matthews-Zott