I imagine you relaxed, in your favorite chair
       leaning back, hands resting, arms at ease

       But when you speak
       when you answer every question

                                     - from ca.leverette ”Literally beautiful and weary”


Only at your last supper are you sitting,
as if it were a posture intermediate
to death.

Otherwise you held yourself erect
even as a babe in arms,

erect as Joseph's helper,
erect at the wedding,
on the Mount,
on the water,
on the hilltop with Satan,

on Golgotha, in resurrection.

But surely as you were a man
you sat,

sat
and had a favorite place to sit,

for if not,
how could you know us
or our sins?

It may have been
a simple stone
beside a quiet stretch
on the road to Tiberias

a place
where sparrows
came down from the air
to harry ants,

or at Magdalen's,
the sofa
where her husband lorded
himself over her
before he walked with
Peter's wife

or did you have
a sparsely furnished room
somewhere
to which you retreated
from evangelist eyes

and simply sat,
for hours,
or days?

You just sit, they say,
in Heaven

a habit
you must have learned
and liked
when you were here,

in a chair
you smuggled back
in the confusion
around the ascension

or built,
the carpenter's son,
from bits of lumber
discarded
by the crucifix maker,

spirited off
by weeping angels
at your command.

When I come, I will sit beside you.
I am tired of standing.

When I come, I will sit beside you.
I am tired of standing.

I don't think I can comment adequately right now. 
I guess everyone is emotional sometimes.  In one
way or another.

Will return,
cheryl

or at Magdalen's,
the stuffed chair
where her husband lorded
himself over her
before he walked with
Peter's wife

the above is my favorite verse;  the empathy demonstrated gives me that lump in my throat kinda feeling.

for if not,
how could you know us
or our sins?

I think the above is why some people don't understand Christianity and/or why we can believe in and worship a God/man who lives now/lived 2000 years ago.

just an afterthought-- I think you mean 'hairy' ants, unless you and Jesus know Harry the Ant, whom I'd love to meet if you do.  lol

Awesome work.  Will be another I return to often.
cheryl 

I'm especially glad you like this poem, since you are its fairy godmother!
I did mean "harry" -- better known as the fairy godmother of its past perfect "harried" -- but maybe it's too little used to be of use here...Thanks, Tom

Wow Tom I missed that completely, and I'm still unsure who 'harry' is ? ? ?

Yeah I love this poem, and I'm trying my best not to blubber and gush over it, because if I get started on all the ramifications, that's exactly what I'll be doing.

And THEN I'll have all these paranoid visions that everyone hates me because I act so foolish.

Geez, will be so glad when I become a balanced, mature OLD woman.  And wouldn't you know it.  I had such a friggin late start.

See how good I am at switching topics?  lol

cheryl

Here's "harry" as I mean it:

harry
–to harass, annoy, or prove a nuisance to by or as if by repeated attacks; worry: He was harried by constant doubts.

I could easily change it, but its usages in aerial situations makes me like it here:

harrier
---any of several short-winged hawks of the genus Circus that hunt over meadows and marshes and prey on reptiles and small birds and mammals.
---a one- or two-seat British-American fighter, both an attack and a reconnaissance aircraft, featuring a turbofan engine with a directable thrust that enables it to land and take off vertically.

But the question you raise, thank you, is whether the word is too obscure. It looks like it might be. I will try to get a few more opinions...Tom

...moving to submit

I did see 'harry' as the word was intended. Heehee, until cherylanne commented, I did not see 'harry ants' in my mind's eye. Just me, if it helps any. Great piece. There is a lot to ponder here, and I love work that makes me ponder. Thank you for sharing.

Thanks, Gabriella. Your note on "harry" helps and I'm glad you enjoyed the poem.
Is there some book or something out there called Harry the Ant or something that I need to be aware of?
Tom

heehee, not that I know of....though there are a LOT of spoofs about Harry Potter...I wouldn't be surprised if you could find one about an ant somewhere...if you REALLY want to look. ;) I don't THINK you have anything to worry about. But, then, what do I know?

Tom, find it fascinating how you have drawn on the iconography, and resultant conventions of religious art. I gather the earliest icons used the conventional depictions of Apollo, to make his face. Not sure that the Coptic branch did the same. This selection seems similar to that made in picking four gospels, out of quite a number (14?), to suit the wishes of early bishops to get conformity. Again, I believe the Coptic branch uses some the rejected gospels. It's interesting how stylised religious art is in depiction, in parallel to conformity in beliefs. Questions: would a painting of the man defecating be blasphemous? make another poem?

Cheers

milner

Oh my heavens, if I was in first grade I'd be jerking my arm off trying to raise my hand.  Not sure that makes sense but perhaps it goes with the territory.

milner, I love your comment and thoughts and questions here.  Wasn't there a big tadoo over a piece of art regarding a man pissing in a jar that offended many Christians (I'll look it up--it was in the 70s, I remember)?  And I think the Christian point was that the man was pissing on Christ.  I have to say, there's no way that's not gonna offend me--paying for art depicting a man pissing on someone I worship and love.  That's just too much to ask.

But a man (or THE man, as you said) defecating?  I think people would be offended, yes.  But I also think they would be very ignorant and narrow-minded to let something like that bother them.  If nothing else, God created all that shit in the first place.

cheryl

What makes someone like Jesus such a fertile figure for art and literature is that so many people has such a spectrum of views and feelings about him, as you Milner and Cheryl illustrate. If a contemporary writer decides to add two cents to the story of Othello, it is a cute literary exercise. But ironically, because of the widely held belief that there is more to Christ's existence than what has been written/painted etc. -- and that some of this existence is available to individuals personally -- Jesus becomes a literary figure that can be enlarged upon by writers/artists over the centuries. As an analogy, look what Milton did with Satan!
Some people believe in a historical man named Jesus, some not, some in a God/man, some not, but as a fairly common denominator we have an ongoing tradition of centuries of song, art, literature etc. that remains open to all artists just as ongoing divine revelation remains available to Quakers.
The noncanonical (sometimes called apocryphal I think) gospels Milner refers to, BYW -- fascinating reading. Tom

Bob, though his pals called him Chippy.

milner