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I have felt it too. The need to be part of something bigger than myself, a family, a community, an organization, a 'people' - to be chosen. To feel in my aching heart that there are others who care about me. Like you, I fear being abandoned and alone: Cast out into the wilderness, like a biblical Israelite. Slavery is a price I have also been willing to pay for a regular meal and some shelter. So I get it. There is strength in numbers, and satisfaction in wearing a uniform. My uniform is a ragged grey garment. There are times I envy your belief in being saved. But I possess no such confidence in Divine plans, no faith in commandments, in priests or prophets and their visions. No belief in saints or sinners, good and evil, the deeds of men. If I have any faith at all, it is in stories and songs about heartache. And in spirits we may conjure around an open fire that we build past the edge of town, where the streetlights end. An American town with a biblical name. On a cold starry desert night like this one, we can collect stones of various shapes and colour from the foot of the red cliffs, place them in a circle, gather dry sticks and set them aflame to warm our chilly bones. I have no explanation for the things that matter most. For why we are here, or for where we are going. The cry of the coyote contains all I have ever understood about love and suffering. What I have for you is a bit of time and attention. Today is a day for strangers from different tribes to meet to share a meal and drink, and to exchange words. You can tell me about your faith and I will tell you about mine. Together we may get somewhere. Call it a promised land.
[*FLDS: Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, a sect of the Mormonism practicing plural marriage, based in northern Arizona and southern Utah.]
3 comments:
I am a big fan of prose poems, and you are pretty good at it ... you should consider using this form more often! You've got a few power lines that I liked. Par example: "The cry of the coyote contains all I have ever understood about love and suffering."
Not sure what to say about the subject matter. On the one hand the poet says he has no faith, and yet in the end he says: "You can tell me about your faith and I will tell you about mine." An odd invitation to engage in "inter-faith dialogue," particularly since the FLDS member is presumably coming to proselytize the poet! The poet seems to be "up" for a good proselytization! Or perhaps he is hoping to connect with the FLDS member at some basic level of common humanity. Good luck with that.
Personally I respect all faiths and denominations. I honestly don't think that any one faith has a monopoly on the Truth. Not even my own faith. I get as much out of reading and studying Meister Eckhart or the Upanishads or the poetry of Rumi as I do out of the classic Jewish texts. All of this is as long as the love and respect is mutual. If someone is out to save me from hell and damnation or disrespect me or my faith in any way, I am compelled to backdown at least somewhat from my formerly liberal stance. "I'm liberal, but to a degree," as Bob Dylan sings in one of his early songs. So while I appreciate the poet's efforts to empathize with the FLDS member, I just don't know enough about the group to comment on whether or not that empathy is misguided. I did see "The Book of Mormon" a few years ago. Have you seen it? It's highly entertaining, and completely irreverent ... but apparently the Mormons took it in stride. It actually increased the public's interest in their faith, I think. So I don't know what to say about your poem ... I guess "yashar koach"!
Thank you! The FLDS got back on my radar screen thanks to my wife who took my eldest and youngest daughters on a brief hiking trip to southern Utah two weeks ago. They stayed in St-George and said that every time they went into a store, the shopkeeper would say, ‘we’re not FLDS’. I knew what that meant because my wife and I had been there before, some years back. But the sect of Mormons that practices plural marriage has got a particularly bad publicity especially since the Netflix documentary series Keep Sweet Pray and Obey. If you haven’t seen it check it out. Watching it I found myself sympathizing with the ‘victims’ of the abuse heaped on them by their male masters of course. But also, understanding what they found attractive about the community. The ‘security’ (both physical and spiritual) it offers. Despite their leader, the very creepy Warren Jeffs, being in jail, the community is still going strong. Reminds me of how vulnerable we all are as human beings. Put me in touch with my Israelite side, wanting to return to the fleshpots of Egypt.
Oh yeah, about my faith, well according to the poem it’s in stories and song. Which I interrupt to mean the common humanity of sharing our individual truths.
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