circa 1994, just before I
met Unitarian Universalism…
At
4 o'clock on the verandah
while a gentle wind lifted her hair
and tickled her fantasies,
she imagined that she did not
wear her religion like a hairshirt
Adam and Eve were not ashamed
of their nakedness
and Aunt Charlotte did not send her
at 11, mortified,
down the stairs with a brassiere
in hand for all to see
announcing that the girl was getting too fat
to go without one
and that if she held her stomach in
her abdomen would learn
to hold in itself.
She imagined her ancestors
were not immigrants from
Papal ruled Italy
and religion-at-gun-point Ireland
instead they were Dionysian dancers
from Greek immersed Sicily
meeting nightly in the temples of life
filling their thirst with the wine
of their bodies
They were ancient Celts who made love
en masse in the oak groves
at Beltane each spring
suckling at the wells of
their own desire
consummating their marriages
of soul and body like no others
since!
Without her religion as a hairshirt
she would not have had to starve herself
near death to get attention in a house
wracked with generations of separation
without the influence of Beezelbub's angels
Parting from marriage would have been respected
honored and claimed not hidden and ignored
weighing down on all of them
with deceit and blame, she its contraband.
Without the hairshirt of religion
wonders would never cease
daylight and evening stars would hear
sonnets and love songs
and she would profess praises
to life: a gift of living
She would not cower in the darkness
fearing the flashback of torture and rapes
in Herzegovina and Jerusalem
holy wars all!
And yet the hair sticks to her skin
scratches and pricks
as she labors in the fields of God
tailor-made not by His sweat
but by some mortal who feared
life would become
too comfortable, enraptured, blissful, light
and the godless one
who never understood what life was anyway
laid down his hand
like a holy one -
and we listened
fearing his wrath
was true.
And so
the dance was lost
the wine spilled
mating games in the grass made sin
and the little girl
with the budding breasts
forced to be thin
dieting her flesh, her skin
her mortal frame
hiding her pleasure crevices
in fleece
denouncing love -
Still, she thought she had rebelled
grown her leggy hair
discarded the deodorant
and makeup of modern man's medieval skin
abandoned leather shoes
pushed aside the red meats
and the white grains
birthed out of wedlock
lived in sin
refused the corporate treads
She had rebelled,
refused, broken through
ripped off that bag of quills
yet she still wore that hairshirt
trading old “shoulds” for others
new demands yet old.
Though on the verandah
on the verandah
in a blissful history turning
time traveling pre-Eden moment,
she threw off that hairshirt
and was
no more caught up
no more invested
no more proving and fighting
no more trading this demon for that
In that moment,
she surpassed her ancestral purgatories
and imagined that she
would no more
wear her religion
like a hairshirt!
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