FROM A LETTER ON THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF VIRGINS
Prologue
Listen daughter
and behold:
forget your people
and your father’s house
i.
the child arrived on
wings like an angel
he was so lovely
she cried to see him
ii.
what they said:[what she heard]:
our physical desire is the Devil’s offspring
what once broken
cannot be repaired
in this darkness
the light won’t open
bearing this knowledge
in that time, the broken
teeth, the smell
and I take this as writ they are the Devil’s cart-horses
For whomsoever will be saved
iii.
she was in a large pain during the birth:
two nights they insisted she must die
would be taken to that place
but she survived...
in the night the cry
pierced us, the horses
shifted, the cow rolled back
her eyes, the cat stopped
pulled her ears back
and the child with wings like a dove
emerged
freakish, without a cry
and covered
with a thin film of hair
she loved her little
bundle the light
shone on her
she navigated the darkness
in that time
iv.
she adored the child
the wings, the fur
at the end of the millennium
it can only be a sign
a wonder
do you know what pain is?
v.
at night she had a choking
feeling
rising and gone
Cast out thine enemy Fear
Call Fortitude in this time of darkness
“but I cannot breathe”
hold her
vi.
there were many horrors
the open sores and the rampage
of witchery
the wings to fly across the
moon at night
it was there, within her, that those that must bleed
and those that beget light met
there:
the wonders were married
before the turning of the millennium
as she held the child--folded it’s wings
petted its soft body
fed it her own milk:
there was a pestilence that stretched
before the armies
in waves you could
see the flames and fumes rise from the ground
rushing towards them
and there will be a pestilence upon you
when you turn your back
on these words as they are written
be afraid
vii.
the form of the letter went as follows:
Mary’s part is silence and peace from all of the noise of the world
the physical desire
is the Devil’s offspring
but the child grew up
and flew yes
flew into the night
above the fires
it was,
the Dark Ages
whether it be
the comet at night
or the eclipse at day
the world was full of
wondrous things
viii.
within this silence, Mary’s silence, you will find
there is, they say insistently, a difference
between Mary and Martha
the bustler and the silent
but not the Magdalen
ix.
these are the things
that happened:
a calf born
with two heads
a cat seen
black as nothing without
a blemish of white
a spider’s web strong enough
to hold a man
and a horse
the inking out
of the moon
x.
These children fluttered home
that child was winged and though
he flew to the sky his wings were not
singed by the sun. His name was
she had not seen the light of the morning before they came for her and
she lived in the millennium--with
in it and she searched for the end
of the night
She was connected to the child by a strand
so thin and tight so as to make
the web of the spiders seem like gossamer
to the fly
remember the Devil’s horse rides herself straight to hell
xi.
(She would so like to wring his neck
take him with her hands to this place)
the child crying wings
and all like an angel
like a beautiful angel
xii.
when they first handed
the child to her
(when they whispered and sucked in their breath
and turned away
and drew the sign of the cross
above across)
it was as though she had stepped out
of that part of herself that was
the darkness
as if
she turned back around to the darkness
and said
“yes
this is me”
xiii.
in the Dark Ages
women lived in secret places
inside the body
of these places
nothing is written
so how do we know where the beginning
of this story is?
where does she begin and end,
the mother?
when the babe comes into being,
when the babe
begins to cry? (when the wings
are all important?)
you can hide a flying child
for only so long
xiv.
but if
in that act you bring forth the devil to your bedchamber
and if
you are prostituting yourself with the devil of hell and he fathers on you the children who you bear
what can you expect from that union
but a child with wings?
a furry child?
xv.
what I am writing about here
is what is in the pit
of myself--
black light
what I see in my future offspring
and myself
for if it is born handicapped, as often happens it is a grief to her and shame to all of its family
xvi.
but truly the child was a wonder
and did rise to the light
his mother
did think he was a wonder
and believed that there had been the highest
love in the creation of the child
(all that foul pleasure is sated with filthiness in the space of a moment)
but what a secret to keep in those days
(become lower than a beast for such poor exchange)
since in the creation
you will never sing a song in heaven but must sing a song of lamentation for evermore in hell
xvii.
Keep guard over her then
Note on the text: quotes are from Medieval English Prose for Women: From the Katherine Group and Ancrene Wisse, edited by Bella Millett and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne
and The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson ed. by Thomas H. Johnson.