Ancient Christian Ecopoetics by Virginia Burrus

Author:Virginia Burrus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc.
Published: 2018-06-21T16:00:00+00:00

Postlude: A Tough Love

Some creatures are easy to love. Most are not.

It is tough to love a saint.

A tough love. A queer love.

So much flesh! Theirs. Mine.

I have always had a strong gag reflex. The sight of blood, pus, anything piercing the skin makes me feel nauseous and faint. Maggots—forget it. I am also afraid of heights.

Yes, the thought of so much mortal flesh makes me a bit dizzy.

And what could we possibly talk about? Religion? Sex? The future of the human race?

Yet they draw me too, those queer old saints. Not despite but because of all that.

Perhaps we would not do much talking. It is easy to sit quietly in the desert, listening to the faint hum of the heat in your ears, the rustle of a lizard, or the buzz of a fly. It is easy to sit quietly in the desert, gazing upon the sun-drenched sand and rock, the dusty green scrub, the unexpected brightness of a blossoming flower.

Perhaps, over time, we would grow comfortable with each other’s animal bodies, with how the other’s animal body made our own animal body feel. Perhaps I would not gag as easily. Or I would mind my gagging less. My strangeness would become more familiar to them as well. We would not do much talking but we would risk the comfort of touch.

One day I would awaken to discover that the saint had died in the night. I would lie down beside the body and hold it in my embrace, realizing that I was no longer afraid of death. Or no longer afraid of my own fear.

Perhaps, over time, I would learn to see my own demons, grow my own vegetables, gather strange desert fruits, drink water from a spring as if it were wine. Live in a cave, roam the wadis, perch in high places. Grow my hair, shed my clothes. See the beauty in the rusting carcass of a pickup truck half buried in the dirt. Listen to the call of the other animals. Read and write messages in the sand.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.