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| "Pentecost" by Jyoti Sahi |
This year The Feast of the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth coincides with The Feast of Pentecost. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 Lockdown I have written almost nothing new. My mind has been too absorbed by other tasks. But this seemed an appropriate conjunction to prompt me writing. I am not bold enough to claim it as a product of inspiration, although I actually believe all forms of creativity are.
Kennedy's poem begins with the line "And has our Lady lost Her place" and I suppose there is an element of pondering on that in this. And it is one of the reasons I love the piece of art I am attaching to this and will post as my #PentecostArt piece on social media. I was also torn between doing it as one of my more straightforward monologues, or a poem. It became an amalgam of both.
Where his friends had ate and drank with him
Where he had seemingly washed their feet
To some resistance;
Where they had been encouraged
To remember God’s deliverance
At Pesach, before the Angel of Death
Visited once more;
Where he had promised them
That he would come again
And would send the Spirit to strengthen them,
To take away their fear.
But he had gone from us, finally.
Ten days with no more sightings.
Though sadly, surprisingly, I had never seen him
Since laying him in the tomb.
That room had become my tomb.
A world where we ate and slept and prayed,
Since it was not safe for us to visit the Temple
For Shavuot.
Then it happened, unexpectedly
A sound of whooshing wind;
What seemed like dancing tongues of flame
And then the babble of praise.
The others spilled outside
To face the mocking crowds unfearful
But I held back, stayed indoors because
The story had moved on.
But my mind went way back
To the beginning, when I, fearfully
Went to visit my older cousin Elizabeth
To see if it were true.
As promised, she was pregnant,
And big bellied she greeted me singing
A song of blessing for me and the child within
Inspired by the Spirit.
I had come to visit her
And she had been visited by the Spirit.
But though our children had come and gone,
The Spirit had now come to stay.
My response that day with Elizabeth
was to sing a song of praise
And my response that day of Shavuot
Visited once more;
Where he had promised them
That he would come again
And would send the Spirit to strengthen them,
To take away their fear.
But he had gone from us, finally.
Ten days with no more sightings.
Though sadly, surprisingly, I had never seen him
Since laying him in the tomb.
That room had become my tomb.
A world where we ate and slept and prayed,
Since it was not safe for us to visit the Temple
For Shavuot.
Then it happened, unexpectedly
A sound of whooshing wind;
What seemed like dancing tongues of flame
And then the babble of praise.
The others spilled outside
To face the mocking crowds unfearful
But I held back, stayed indoors because
The story had moved on.
But my mind went way back
To the beginning, when I, fearfully
Went to visit my older cousin Elizabeth
To see if it were true.
As promised, she was pregnant,
And big bellied she greeted me singing
A song of blessing for me and the child within
Inspired by the Spirit.
I had come to visit her
And she had been visited by the Spirit.
But though our children had come and gone,
The Spirit had now come to stay.
My response that day with Elizabeth
was to sing a song of praise
And my response that day of Shavuot
alone in that room
Was to sing… unheard.
Was to sing… unheard.
Selah
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