Mary knew neither the
pleasure nor the pain of sex,
But she understood the terror
of being visited by angels
And the more straightforward
agonies of childbirth.
In this way, she is, at the
same time,
Elevated above us, and yet,
still one of us.
At least, that is what I’ve
been led to believe.
This Mary, before me and
above me,
With her inscrutable plaster
face
Not exactly smiling down on
me
Could only have been carved
by a man:
A man with his dreams of
sacrifice
And the unemotional purity of
duty;
A monk or a priest, perhaps,
But certainly not a man who
understood women.
I want to understand her,
this mother of God,
For all our children are holy
in some way, aren’t they?
I want to know what she felt:
Not the mythical immaculate
virgin,
But the real flesh and guts
woman,
With her milk stained tunics
And work worn hands.
I want to know the Mary who
copulated,
Not with angels, but with her
man.
Did she lie back like the
sacrificial lamb,
A vessel, bravely thinking of
Jerusalem?
Or was she something more?
This mother of the
Christ-child
And all his sisters and
brothers?
For all her periods and
pregnancies,
Did she get to understand the
rhythm of the Earth?
Did she ever ride on top, a
Goddess,
Enraptured with her own sweet
self?
There are no marks, no scars
on her plaster skin,
No clues, but if this Mary
could speak,
She would say naught of her
self
But speak only of other
women’s sorrows,
For she has seen
A passing procession of
womanhood
Of all ages, of all races,
before her
And she has heard every story
That ever a woman could have
told.
I behold her stony, silent
eyes.
They look down upon me, upon
my pram
With its cargo of sleepy
flesh:
My baby, with her colic and
pain;
My off-spring, my offering
With her sad-eyed, unknowing
yearning
For a father who is as
distant
As a Holy Ghost.
I offer up my pain, my
prayers, my doubts
As a myriad have done before
me,
Hoping that the Mary who bled
milk and tears,
The Mary who worked the home
and the fields,
Will somehow be able to hear
me.
Read more of Dee Rimbaud's
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