Anodyne

{What Pegman Saw is an international romp around the world in 150 words, addressing a different locale each week.  This week the locale is Bhutan.

My connection to Bhutan, I fear, is pretty weak.  The picture on the Pegman website has a goat in it, and haircloth was sometimes made of goat’s hair.

I have also been watching an award-winning Danish Netflix series (Herrens Veje or Ride Upon the Storm).  In it, a Danish priest’s son studies to be a Buddhist monk, at a monastery in the Himalayas (Nepal.)  The show uses  lines from the Lord’s Prayer (aka, the Our Father) as titles for each segment of the show, which is probably why I mentioned a line myself.

Also, the poem laments something that happened in another set of mountains, pictured above.

But mostly, I just miss participating in Pegman and hope they will forgive my overage.

******

The first three lines of this poem came to me, presciently, months and months ago.  Long before my father had a household accident, which resulted in his suffering from major physical wounds.  I was initially writing in reaction to my mother’s passing, a mere year before.  The poem went in another direction, however.

Any assault on a parent’s health is a painful thing for the family to experience.  But having it occur again, so close to the first parent’s passing, feels like the re-opening of a wound, that is desperately trying to heal.

Sorry, if my presentation is distasteful.  It is a raw subject, so to speak.

But I imagine many of you have borne this type of pain.

***

The word “anodyne”, by the way, comes from the Greek, meaning “without pain.” (Dictionary.com). The literal meaning in English is somewhat archaic: a pharmaceutical painkiller.  It also has the more figurative sense of something inoffensive (Dictionary.com), or something that soothes, calms or comforts (Merriam-Webster.com).

“Hair cloth” was used to make hair shirts, an early to medieval form of penance or self-mortification, rarely used today.  The cloth is made of something like goat’s hair so as to be very scratchy and uncomfortable.  By wearing a hair shirt, either alone or under one’s finer clothes, one could atone for one’s sins, protect against temptations of the flesh, or guard against vanity.  (NewAdvent.org Catholic Encyclopedia)  “Wearing a hair shirt” today means trying to punish oneself, to show remorse for something one  has done. (collinsdictionary.com).

Thank you for stopping by and reading!}

 

 

My wound is still

Too fresh, too new,

And his is deeper yet.

She left us all,

Our lives askew,

No solace, but a pet.

 

Once hazy-maybe

And unclear,

The countenance of Death

Now rears.  It reels,

And re-appears,

Distinct.  Takes all that’s left.

 

His wound is still

Too fresh, too new.

Death combs his stillest sands

And rakes the hill

Where love once grew,

And claims them as His lands.

 

I’m bound to fight.

I’m bound to race

Death’s sickle in its flight,

Contest its might,

Arrest its haste.

I cannot face this fright.

 

Great chunks of flesh

Wrenched grimly loose

From where he, solid, stood,

In my own breast:

I’m some fat goose,

Whose liver, now, is cooked.

 

The Devil

Taunting Jesus

On the mountain, looked below:

Such pleasing, fine

Temptations

Could be had, by saying no.

 

So do I,

Pesky gadfly,

Try to thwart what God has willed.

How can I

Merely stand by,

Watching my protector, killed?

 

“Thy will be done,”

The prayer taunts,

Concealing wicked barbs.

We try it on:

The haircloth’s

Itchy bristles pierce our arms.

 

Each hour is precious,

Each a gift.

Why do we whinge and whine?

Resenting insult.

Feeling miffed.

Preferring anodyne.

 

 

 

Copyright 2019 Andrea LeDew