My heart feels as though it were a Leyden jar.
Not the cardiac muscle with its autonomic contractions -
I mean mi corazón, that center of psyche-spirit where bonds
of affection are meant to be formed with other persons;
where all those affect receptors ought to be aquiver,
awaiting a new acquaintance’s touch,
waiting to try for a fit, as a key fits its keyhole.
But no one has been able to reach inside the glass jar
since you sent me away into exile
to search in the taiga for my destiny.
And the battery wire is disconnected.
And the foil sheets lining the jar
make it impossible for anyone to peer inside
for a glimpse of what’s there.
I go about the tundra, and up and down in it like a ghost,
whose availability no one notices, even when I smile.
I imagine my smile is like the Cheshire cat’s grin
– a disembodied thing.
Jim Weller is a graduate of Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. He is currently a member of Peace United Church of Christ, formerly called First Congregational Church of Santa Cruz.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
A Fable, After Aesop
Once upon a time a terrible forest fire drove all the animals in the woods down to the inside of a bend in the river. The birds took to the air and flew to the opposite bank. Some of the legged ones dove in and swam across to safety, but the others who crept or crawled, or slithered couldn’t swim or paddle. These gathered together, in great fear, with no means of escape.
One little snake, of a venomous kind, begged a large frog to carry him across the river on his back. “Please, please, kind Ranadaean Sir, Best of Batrachians, won’t you save my life, since you swim so well and easily?” wheedled the juvenile adder.
“But I fear you will bite me if I come close; you’ll kill me with your poison. No, no, I’m afraid to help you,” replied the old frog.
The snakelet answered, “Heaven forfend, dear Anuran Lord; I swear by all that’s holy, I won’t harm a wart of your handsome head. I’ll name my first hatched offspring after you. I promise the tale of your goodness and trust will be told for generations in Viperdom. There’s no time to lose; hurry! Come here and let me coil upon your back.”
Well, that big old frog repented of his mistrust; he beheld before him the spectacle of masses of creepers and crawlers beginning to charbroil, he felt a tide of mercy lift his warming heart, and he consented to remove the garrulous serpent from harm’s way, saying urgently, “Hold on as best you can; I’ll try to keep you above water.” And off they went, the frog stroking strongly, his bow wave streaming back from his nose as he surged ahead, the puff adder pup balancing on the frog’s broad green back.
When the odd couple of refugees, reptile and amphibian, arrived on the other shore, in the snake’s promised land of salvation, as it were, the good frog exclaimed enthusiastically, “Hallelujah, Brother Serpent, we made it!” And the snake struck, sinking his deadly fangs into the frog’s cervical spine just below his skull, where the back of his neck would have been, if frogs had necks.
The frog cried, “You bit me! You’re killing me! Why did you bite me, when I had just saved you from certain death? You made a holy oath! Why did you betray your word?” And the rescued puff adder, slithering away, replied simply, “Hey, I’m a snake. I bite. That’s what I do!”
The moral of the story is: Never turn your back on a snake. Not even a well-spoken one.
One little snake, of a venomous kind, begged a large frog to carry him across the river on his back. “Please, please, kind Ranadaean Sir, Best of Batrachians, won’t you save my life, since you swim so well and easily?” wheedled the juvenile adder.
“But I fear you will bite me if I come close; you’ll kill me with your poison. No, no, I’m afraid to help you,” replied the old frog.
The snakelet answered, “Heaven forfend, dear Anuran Lord; I swear by all that’s holy, I won’t harm a wart of your handsome head. I’ll name my first hatched offspring after you. I promise the tale of your goodness and trust will be told for generations in Viperdom. There’s no time to lose; hurry! Come here and let me coil upon your back.”
Well, that big old frog repented of his mistrust; he beheld before him the spectacle of masses of creepers and crawlers beginning to charbroil, he felt a tide of mercy lift his warming heart, and he consented to remove the garrulous serpent from harm’s way, saying urgently, “Hold on as best you can; I’ll try to keep you above water.” And off they went, the frog stroking strongly, his bow wave streaming back from his nose as he surged ahead, the puff adder pup balancing on the frog’s broad green back.
When the odd couple of refugees, reptile and amphibian, arrived on the other shore, in the snake’s promised land of salvation, as it were, the good frog exclaimed enthusiastically, “Hallelujah, Brother Serpent, we made it!” And the snake struck, sinking his deadly fangs into the frog’s cervical spine just below his skull, where the back of his neck would have been, if frogs had necks.
The frog cried, “You bit me! You’re killing me! Why did you bite me, when I had just saved you from certain death? You made a holy oath! Why did you betray your word?” And the rescued puff adder, slithering away, replied simply, “Hey, I’m a snake. I bite. That’s what I do!”
The moral of the story is: Never turn your back on a snake. Not even a well-spoken one.
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