By Eva Conrad Smashwords Edition Copyright 2012 Eva Conrad (K. G. D.) Smashwords Edition, License Notes This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author/photographer. Dedicated to Loren Miller; for we are the progeny of kings and sages. Little Epiphany I. St. Martin of Tours, in a sketchy part of town.  Open the door and walk out of the sunlight into the marbled vestibule and up into sacred space. Dip my fingers in the Holy Water and cross myself, though I am not Catholic. Have come here for many reasons, all ordinary. Can hear my sobbing echo as I kneel  on the prie Dieu before the Virgin’s statue. A vase of flowers blooms at her feet:  pink roses, purple cushion mums, Leathery leaves of laurel. Looking down at the pattern of cross and rosettes on the needlepoint cover on the elbow rest, Realize that some dear woman created it, stitch by stitch, and we are like that:  Baby-blue stitches, slate-hued stitches, rosy stitches and pale pink; some in the design, Some in the cream-colored background.  I am a stitch and you are a stitch and together We are humanity.   II. And then, before the Holy Face, bloodied, beaten and swollen, The knowing that comes is this:  We, too, are bleeding from inflicted stripes and gouges. Suffering abuses of others and our own mistakes. We, ourselves, are the crosses we must bear. And so it is, both just and terribly unjust, as we go about surviving. For God so loved the world that he sent his own Son to make us innocent And show us how to carry our wounds as we move ourselves through life. Ambient   Thunder rolls in the distance; a summer storm approaches like a secret whispered on the other side of the room. Rain is already falling somewhere else, its smell carried in the wind:  wet pavement and damp earth. The leaves of grass taste the first few drops and their roots reach for more. Someone’s practicing flute the next street over, starting and stopping, the notes becoming clearer, Cat lounges on a cushioned chair under the covered porch, licking paws and listening. Cleaner, Truer. Bumblebee buzzes from flowerpot to flowerpot, Doves roost and coo in the trees. Flash of lightning, Low roll of thunder. A subtle symphony.  Existential Rumination at Rouen She must have been lovelier than the sun’s own rays, this girl, a captive spoil of war; Some would call her whore. But what choice had she When William Longsword saw her and decided to put aside his lawful wife And mate his prisoner? This girl, Esprota, a peasant without a droplet of noble blood, Possessor of bewitching charms and a mind for survival, forced to serve as concubine. She would bear with William a son, Fearless Richard I, ridiculed as a bastard yet named his father’s successor, Survive her captor and wed a man of great wealth once death made her free again. Sprota, have I proven that I have a drop of your blood pulsing inside me? And what of you, William Longsword, whose tomb I pass by, my breath echoing in this cavernous cathedral, Your bones at repose in your elaborate sepulcher, what have you given me? Second Thought But then I turn, halfway down the rue, and look back, thinking That I should take a pry bar to William Longsword’s crypt and leave his sculptured likeness In pieces on the floor, take the bones and string them together, Carry them dangling from a broomstick down the street, then walk into a lab, Pop out one of his teeth and demand answers be extracted from his DNA by force, As if I can get an explanation that way. I want to know why he thought he had the right to abduct her, force her, Place her in the palm of history, to be so accused, to make her child illegitimate. By his cruelty, I am here, and there’s the rub. I could grind his bones to powder, scatter them in the wind, And they’d yet be bonded with mine by virtue of the code. It’s the strangest thing to abhor one who brought you. Personal History   Resonates like a voice in an alley between two tall buildings; As spindly tree grows in the spot where three cracks in the pavement meet , surviving despite privation, And pigeons roost on fire escapes in the cold shadows of the city. Rats run in and out of the storm sewers and holes that go beneath. An empty dumpster reeks of death, dripping the liquid remains of what it contained Hours before, predicting what might occupy it in the future.   Breast milk and subconscious messages in a small flat. Sound of television droning in the background, exchange of argument. Smell of powder and fresh-scented diapers. The bassinet is situated beside the window that looks down into the alleyway.   Life is a crawl space to share with spiders, a crack in the sidewalk between two brick walls, A crack in the pavement where one might take root. Singular I once knew a lilac bush that had the odd habit of blooming in both spring and fall. It was an odd thing, a blessing that came from no where in particular. When the days became short and the evenings cold, I’d go to the lilac bush and breathe Of its perfumed blossoms, taking as much in as I could to sustain myself Through winter’s darkness. It was gnarled with age, overgrown and beautiful; Someone blind to beauty mistook its singularity for ugliness, hacked it to the ground, Dug out its sacred roots. Now I must sustain myself by memory: knotted, twisting branches clustered With pale purple blooms, leaves shaped as hearts. Balance Test Or, as my friend says, “What is a midlife crisis to someone who’s never known stability?” He cocks his head as if he envies me, because he thinks I am somehow more prepared. (I heard the stories; he lost his marbles, but I like the convertible he bought during his dance with insanity). I hear his thoughts tell me: you have nothing to worry about. Then he passes me a beer, and I know I’ll survive. But I have to wonder what it will be like On the other side. Brother and I You and I have been together for thirty-seven years. We amble through fallen leaves, Feeling for hickory nuts under our feet in this old stomping ground of our childhood, Still trying to figure out what we survived, our memories a patchwork once We stitch together the disparate pieces. Still there are holes Where the things we both blotted out would be, things we forgot So we could survive. Here we are, surviving: we gather hickory nuts, Clip springs of bright-berried bittersweet And mull it all over, asking each other the questions we ask ourselves. The Ache Always there, prodding us to do what must be done. Whatever is accomplished is never enough. Our forebears nag us, Their eminent eyes staring back at us through digitized civilization. How will we ever bear that standard of so many kings and warriors and sages. They stand at my shoulder, measuring my work Day by day. I am but a plodder, a hack, A dull-hued bird Looking for a place to roost In a family tree far superior to me.