In first person, forty-three Old and New Testament women re-tell Biblical stories from their unique perspectives. In the pivotal poem of the collection, the Samarian woman recalls her meeting with Jesus at the well years later as an old woman.
All the women in these dramatic monologues yearn for that water which will become a wellspring from which eternal life will flow. Water, a typically feminine symbol, binds all these disparate voices, some strident and defiant, others humorous. The poems are arranged chronologically from Eve to Damaris. Crying defiance against the priesthood, Jezebel proudly defends her name, “Always a curse lisped between lips\I swear, of women-hating priests\who strive to suppress the feminine\No shame it is to be named Jezebel.” In a lighter vein, Mary of Bethany declares herself “the housewife’s patron saint\not my sister Martha dusting and polishing.\All you everyday housewives who would be holy\throw away your brooms, brushes and rag mops.\What profit a clean house when you lose your soul?” This collection of persona poems provides a refreshing, and sometimes shocking, counterpoint to the mostly male point-of-view the Bible affords. In Women at the Well, readers will hear Biblical women speak tougher and wittier words than Scripture allows.
Excerpt
MARY OF BETHANY
In the hagiographies I am not listed.
I tell you I am the housewife’s patron saint,
not my sister Martha dusting and polishing.
All you everyday housewives who would be holy
throw away your brooms, brushes and rag mops.
What profit a clean house when you lose your soul?
Because I let supper burn to listen to Jesus
Martha complains to him she’s stuck with the work.
Jesus tells her I’ve chosen the right way.
When you hear your child cry or your friend call
leave the dishes in the sink and hear their story.
They’ve only now; tomorrow you have the house.
When Lazarus died I stayed in the house crying
until Martha came and told me Jesus had arrived.
I looked up at Him and said if He’d been in Bethany
four days ago Lazarus would still be alive.
He pulled me to my feet, wiped my tears away
and said: “Take me to where Lazarus lies sleeping.”
Martha stopped Jesus at the entrance to the cave.
“Don’t go in—four days—the smell will be bad,” she said.
There is nothing neat or clean about the house of the dead
but Martha would be always sweeping at death’s door.
I kissed Lazarus as his winding sheet unrolled
and Martha picked it up, folding it so neatly.
Jesus loved me because I acted on impulse
and cleaned what counted with aromatic nard,
his precious feet, for which even his apostles
scolded me, and dried them with my amber hair.
The men believed I should sell the nard, use the money
for the poor, whom Jesus knew we would always have.
He loved me for what I was, not for what I wasn’t,
just as he loved you, Martha, for your neatness,
a neatness that counts for little if you lose
the spontaneity of a heart ever loving and flowing.
He loved us both in our fashion, eating your dinners
in a well-kept house he loved to visit in Bethany.
Martha, you are no longer cross with me I see.
You are old, sick and I clean house for you.
I bring you in bed warm broth and fresh-baked bread.
You nibble it. I prop your gray head up.
I hold your hand and sometimes we talk awhile
of Jesus on the cross and the stone rolled away.
A further collection of poems, many from years in the Middle East, but also the California San Francisco and Central Coast areas (Santa Cruz, Carmel, Big Sur, Berkeley, etc.).
