--able to introduce two colleagues from the state.
In particular, I'm happy to introduce our first reader,
because he's been a friend of mine for many years.
Jim Simmerman and I were fellows together at the Fine Arts Work
Center in Provincetown in the--
where in the heck was that, Jim?
[LAUGHS] Pleistocene.
Yeah, a few years back.
A good time, I think, for both of us in some respects,
to have a chunk of time to work on poems
and hang out in a wonderful, wild place.
And we've been pals ever since.
I've always admired his work.
His new book of poems, Moon Go Away, I Don't Love You No More,
was published by Miami University Press.
His other books are Home and Once Out of Nature.
In addition to the Fine Arts Work Center fellowship,
he's also had a fellowship from the NEA.
And his most recent project is editing an anthology
of poems about dogs.
Simmerman brings a truly singing kind of tension
to formal poems, and while he might suggest that
he's merely a strategist "duping myself
with a dozen dumb tricks," he's not just kidding around.
If forced to compare him to another poet,
I'd have to come up with three.
Bill Knott for his playfulness, Marilyn Hacker
for his formal mastery, and perhaps Phil Levine
for his good heart.
If that seems like an unlikely mix to dwell in one poet,
such are the surprises and pleasures
in the work of Jim Simmerman.
Please welcome him.
[APPLAUSE]
OK.
That introduction was so nice, I don't think I should read.
Can you hear OK?
This seems loud to me.
Can you hear OK?
Are you OK back there?
Good.
I'm very happy to be here.
I'm happy to see Alison again.
I read with Jewell in Tempe about a month ago,
and it's a pleasure to be down here with her again
and to get to hear her read again.
What I'm going to do is, I had thought
to read some poems from this new book
and then to get into some new material.
But I decided to just go into new material.
So I'm to read all new poems.
I'm on sabbatical this semester, and I've
been absorbed in a number of small manias,
following the OJ trial being one of them, relearning to play
the drums being another.
And also writing kind of feverishly,
and perhaps even fiendishly, and reminded, in consequence,
that full-time writing is its own madness.
And I've gotten involved in a new manuscript, the working
title of which is Kingdom Come.
And these poems are all monologues
in the voices of religious and biblical characters and types.
So I'm going to test some of these poems out on you.
I'm often interested in the characters' jobs,
their occupations.
So this first poem is called The Baptist.
That was my job title, but I don't know.
Mostly, I felt like a man unsure of his mission or calling
in a world gone inexplicably gaga over the latest fad.
Not so bad as tattooing, of course,
that permanent, sad, cartoonish art
which, given the dissolute acts of my past, I eschewed,
ever paranoid of identifying marks.
Nor body piercing, another pop and pointless preoccupation
among the congregations of certain sects
who seem not to feel as though they
had enough holes in their heads already.
Steady, most days.
Clean and sober, I tried hard not
to think about the brink of ruination I teetered on always,
the tightwire of nerves between null and void I tiptoed along.
Was I wrong, then, to pursue a vocation the nature of which
was commercial, and for which the only requisites were
a knack for rhetoric and water?
Sacrosanct, self-employed, I blessed each man, woman, son,
and daughter willing to cough up a quarter for the privilege
of having their heads dunked under until a day came
I discovered I had begun to hold first one, then another,
beneath the surface a little longer,
had begun to take a sort of pleasure in the way
their faces clenched against the pressure of my palm.
And in the twitchings and shudders
of the body possessed abruptly by the Holy Spirit
of its own mortality, the pure chemical
rush of the brain to stake its claim
on the thin air of this Earth.
So high was I by then on the power
and the glory of my own authority,
I could hardly let loose my hold,
could hardly contain the ecstatic waves breaking
against the walls of my heart like Methadrine
at the joyful noises they made finally, their gasps
and sputtering of praise.
And so I say unto you of shallow faith,
come down and drown your sinful ways
in the ordained river of heaven.
You can kick and claw at the hand of the Almighty,
but you can't hold your breath forever.
That'd be The Baptist.
You'll recognize this character as Goliath, to a point.
The poem's The Philistine.
The Philistine, the Goliath, speaks and says this.
Though I had always been large for my age,
I was never one to pick a fight, never went out
for competitive sports or bullied my way
to the front of the line.
If mine was the girth and height of a titan,
I felt like a schoolgirl inside, would
blush at the rush of my classmates
to recess whose horseplay and roughneck I could not abide.
Believe me, I tried and tried to make friends,
but my smile capsized in the sea of my jowls.
My pass at a laugh howled forth like a gale.
Sometimes I frighten myself.
Sometimes I felt I'd been issued in error
a body I could not return, could not get out of, shrink,
or take in.
Whatever I did, I grew.
When I was drafted, they threw me up
to the front, promoted me solely based on my size
and for the way I could make the enemy quake,
turn tail, and flee just by waving my arms
and rolling my eyes, an act I devised by pretending to dance.
Though of course, I had never been asked.
I was lonely as ever, even with rank.
My duty was easy but crass, until that son of a shepherd,
a child, really, with the voice of an alto, skin like milk,
eyes of cornflower blue, called me
out to the field of battle at last,
as if onto the floor of a ballroom.
And when the rock hit my head, it felt like a kiss.
What had I ever wanted but love?
To be swept off my feet completely, just once.
Oh, David, my hero, my dove.
[LAUGHTER]
This is a poem-- many of these poems
I have read not at all, or perhaps only once before.
And when I read with Jewell in Tempe last month,
this is a poem that I actually ended up
reading around a table in a cafe as we were
having beers after the reading.
So I thought I'd try it before a larger audience.
The speaker of this poem is Joseph, the kind
of stepfather of Jesus.
And he begins by talking first about Mary, the Virgin
Mary, and later about Jesus, about the boy.
And again, the poem takes an interest in his vocation.
And so this poem is The Carpenter.
Someone nailed her, and someone would
have to marry her who yet maintains she was a virgin.
Sure, what with her belly bulging like barrel staves.
Still, she was a cutie, her bright eyes
shining like varnished mahogany, her skin golden as honey oak.
Finally, I spoke plainly to her, as befits a man of my trade,
saying, sweetie, you have snapped a chalk line
down the center of my heart, cut through it cleanly.
Won't you finish your work and be my wife?
Which was a hard row from the get
go, what with taxes and the necessary commuting
to construction sites.
Plus, there were the inevitable sniggers and jokes
about another man's chisel in my toolbox.
But we managed.
We survived.
And when the child arrived, I raised him
as if he were my own, instructing him
in the many things a carpenter should know.
First and last, good wood from bad.
How there's a time to sand and a time to caulk.
The wisdom of working with the grain,
that every job must stop.
Sad to say, his aptitude was minimal.
His interest in the family business, nil.
Instead, he read, brooded, roamed the wilderness alone.
A sensitive boy, and bright, but looking for god knows what.
I don't.
Frankly, it worried the wife a while.
Frankly, it worried me, too.
Though isn't that just the way of the young,
needing to figure it out on their own?
Anything beating the old man's shoes.
Times were changing fast, it's true.
Timber was scarcer, money tight.
So why not a future in fasting and prayer?
No chip off this block, the kid could be right.
The speaker in this poem is Barabbas,
who, of course, was pardoned by acclamation of the masses,
rather than Christ being pardoned.
And Christ got crucified, and Barabbas did this.
This poem is called The Insurrectionist
which, in the King James edition of the Bible,
is the official crime that Barabbas was convicted of.
The Insurrectionist.
I copped a plea, was permitted to go free for reasons
I did not care to understand.
I, who murdered, maimed, molested,
had a hand in every pocket in the province,
walked, then ran like spillage fast away from that place
of trial by trumpery and traducement,
cast no backward glance at the man made to take up his cross
and dance the clumsy two-step of the frame.
What was his name, whose crime was
talk and a certain predilection for self-bemusement?
And what was the bounty worth ratting him out?
In the short spell we shared a cell,
I got to know him not at all, except in the way
one gets to know the doomed for what they are.
The unintelligible mutterings that dripped from their lips
like soup scud, how their eyes roll
back as if to stare at some mural painted
on the inside of the skull.
No, it wasn't fair that I, who had a rap sheet a cubit long
and not a prayer of rehabilitation,
should skate on that date when custom required
of the public one gesture of mercy, however
forced or ill-advised.
Nor was it long before the authorities
realized their mistake, to make of a mild man
a martyr, then a legend that would
sink its teeth into the very throat of history.
And me?
I got back to business as usual, but with a newfound respect
for participatory democracy and a genuine fondness
for a system of justice which may be blind, but is not dumb.
Give us Barabbas, bleated the sheep.
Got what they asked for, and then some.
A character, a biblical character,
I've always been sort of intrigued
by for a number of reasons is the wife of Lot, Lot's wife.
One of those reasons being that her name is Lot's wife.
[LAUGHTER]
She has no name beyond that.
And she is the character who, of course,
when Lot is warned to flee--
I can't remember if he was dwelling
at the time in Sodom or Gomorrah when
he was instructed by, ostensibly, angels
in a public place to do so.
And he did it, dragging his wife along.
She is reported to have looked back.
The crime of memory, it occurs to me, in some ways,
to have looked back and then to have
been turned to a pillar of salt. Maybe yes, maybe no.
This poem is The Wife.
When we were leaving the city, I was
nagged by a feeling of having somehow forgotten something,
a small but persistent itching somewhere
in the middle of the back of the brain
where memory couldn't reach a finger to scratch it,
and where, if I'd had eyes there,
I would have seen what it was I wasn't to return to and about
which now there seemed nothing I could do.
You know, a door unlocked, a candle unsnuffed,
some thing or one to which I hadn't said goodbye.
I, who knew better than most the trials of marriage
to a trusting man, one who was wont to consult freely
with angels and strangers alike, and who believed,
oh, gullible darling, the least likely of rumors
murmured in taverns, and who was given
to panic and visions of doom.
Soon enough, we would have found a room in a different city
with a different name, found ourselves
amid new friends with whom we could complain
about the blasphemy and evils that
walk the streets of the world like sullen immigrants.
And it would be the same.
It would be time's way of recording and playing
itself back ad infinitum, the good
of which I just couldn't see.
No matter that it would have been an easy enough, a wifely,
thing to do for the man I loved and even honored,
but whom I could not finally obey.
To this day, I pray he never learns what
but for his blind obedience and trust
would have been obvious all along.
I simply walked away, turned back to a city
with a home and a family that needed looking after.
Such was my lot, for which I was unnamed.
Well, the speaker in this poem is King David,
but this is before he'd been promoted to King.
And this is when he was still a psalmist, which
I guess he was--
I can't remember if he was a psalmist
while he was a shepherd, or if that
was kind of a mid-level management position
that he had for a time.
But there's kind of a gimmick to this poem,
and that's that-- some of you may have seen these.
You can find them in the back of Rolling Stone magazine,
and you can see them sometimes in poetry magazines
and creative writing journals, where
people claim that they will pay you
money for your original poems and song lyrics that
might be set to music.
Well, this is David speaking, and the poem
is called The Psalmist.
The ad on the scroll said, wanted, your original song
lyrics and poems to set to music.
Established firm representing legendary artists
seeks new talent for possible collaboration.
Over 2000 years in the industry.
So I sent in the application card, which
guaranteed me professional assessment
of my work, for which I would be charged a modest fee refundable
in full so long as the work was accepted,
recorded, entered the charts with a bullet,
went gold, went platinum with overseas sales,
garnered the artist a Grammy.
See, I was a simple man with limited prospects.
A hillbilly, really, who didn't know a psalm from a sow.
Like my daddy, I worked hard in the field, living on cold pack
and sleeping at night with the animals.
But right along, I had these dreams
of a better life where I would dwell in a custom home
with indoor plumbing.
My cup full, a table prepared, all those
wonders I had seen once in a catalog in an outhouse.
So I sent in this country thing I
had written about green pastures, valleys, goodness
and such.
Not much, but it came from the heart,
and I guess some people could relate,
because the rest, you know, is history.
I was chosen, and it could happen to you.
But you must act fast.
Please sign and return immediately.
[LAUGHTER]
The speaker of this poem sort of is and is not Moses.
He's sort of a contemporary version of Moses, I suppose.
And Moses is another biblical character
who's always intrigued me for a number of reasons, one of which
is that, of course, having led the tribe of Israel,
the chosen people, for 40 years through the wilderness
to the promised land, he was then not permitted to enter.
Like, it didn't seem fair.
And that, I guess, was apparently
for when he received the commandments on stone from God
and took them down to the tribe and discovered
they had built another graven image
in his absence, those idiots.
He broke the law.
I was also curious--
I thought about this after the fact,
but I think I was thinking of Newt Gingrich's plans
for orphans in this poem, too.
This poem is called The Prophet.
It also has a line near the end which I think I made up,
but it sounds like something I've heard.
I mean, somebody made it up.
The Prophet.
I was taught that the body is home
to the father, whose house has many rooms, like the Poetry
Center.
[LAUGHTER]
But also that whosoever would dwell
in the house of the father must abandon the body.
Frankly, I was confused.
Frankly, I couldn't see where that followed anything
like a logical conclusion the metaphor was headed.
Not home, unless home is a funhouse of trick mirrors
and tilted floors where things appear
to roll uphill and the doors are tinier than you suspected.
Still, I pledged, if selected, to head the holy commission
on relocation, to find the blueprints to the promised
abode where we should all be admitted like lucky orphans.
Pledged to inspect the wiring and the plumbing
and see if things were up to code.
For a long time, longer than Moses,
I roamed through many strange lands and foreign dreams,
rode the bus through many bad neighborhoods
in search of the place I could almost
taste the memory of in advance.
What chance did I have, lacking faith or a roadmap?
And what sad idols had been erected in my absence?
The past tense gets you only so far.
What I needed was a car with a full tank, a little Jesus
on the dashboard, the radio dialed to an all night gospel
station.
What I needed was a nation of Sunday Go To Meeting neighbors
to tail through the wilderness of streets, strip
malls, and unmowed yards, to lead me
to the golden porch light shining down
upon the welcome mat.
But it turns out, I was in charge.
And it turns out, I didn't do half a bad job
for someone who couldn't find shit with his ass.
I was lost, but finally found the way home, into which
I am now not permitted to pass.
An ascetic is a particular brand of religious zealot
who attempts to attain grace via the mortification of the flesh
by wearing hair shirts, by having
pebbles and rocks in their shoes, by whipping themselves.
And it occurred to me that it might
be interesting to have sort of a contemporary, suburban ascetic
speak.
So that's what this character is.
This is The Ascetic.
It begins with, actually, a Henny Youngman bit.
It's like the old joke where you go to the doctor
and say, doctor, it hurts when I do this.
And the doctor says, don't do that.
Only this is no joke.
This is the way I'm learning to pray ceaselessly
to the God of mind your manners, learning
to trim the fat of the flesh from the meat of the soul.
Like any good butcher, I'm getting
to know the intimate details of anatomy
and the value of a sharp knife.
In my former life, I worshipped comfort and, if not joy,
certainly the absence of pain.
I could borrow, say, the spiritual equivalent
of a cup of sugar from the squeals of the contestants
on Wheel of Fortune.
I could sink into the naga hide of the La-Z-Boy recliner
so deeply sometimes, it seemed some miracle
of transubstantiation, seemed I had
become the recliner in the way that those Cheetos
I had eaten earlier as a bedtime snack had become, inexplicably,
me.
So La-Z-Boy, Cheetos, game show of the brain,
trinity to which I sacrificed nothing
because it was not required, and because I
was permitted to dream of the holy cities,
of the Princess cruise line and the Epcot Center into which,
one day, I might be received.
But this was false prophecy.
This was the trick the fox played on the hare, a tar baby
La-Z-Boy theology into which you could sink so deeply,
you'll never get out without giving up
a little fur, a little hide.
And that is why I abide these bottle
caps in the bottoms of my slippers,
this frayed electrical extension cord
wound tightly around my chest, the ice cubes I swallow whole.
And that is how what began as a joke can end in a prayer, where
you go to the Lord and say, Lord, it hurts when I do this.
And the Lord says, good.
I think that's all.
Thanks.
[APPLAUSE]
I'll confess, when we invited these two authors,
we thought what they had in common
was that they were both faculty members
in our sibling institutions, Jim being at NAU
and Jewell being a new faculty member at ASU in Tempe.
I don't think we realized, because we didn't know
Jim's new work, that they were both engaged
with some stunning tellings or retellings of the stories
of American religion.
[LAUGHS] The stories as they are rarely told.
Jewell Parker Rhodes is the author
of Voodoo Dreams, her first novel, which was
published by St Martin's Press.
It was selected for the Barnes and Noble Discover New Authors
series and received a rare diamond
from Kirkus Reviews and a star from Booklist.
In addition to being a fiction writer, she's also a scholar
and has been the co-author of numerous textbooks
for the DC Heath middle level literary series.
And she has a story that will be coming out,
or may be out by now already, in Best Short Stories
by Black Writers published by Little Brown.
We're delighted that she's become part of our family
in Arizona.
Please welcome Jewell Parker Rhodes.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
It's a pleasure to be here for the Poetry Center, pleasure
to read with Jim.
We're going to take this show on the road.
Voodoo Dreams concerns Marie Laveau, a 19th century Voodoo
queen who ended up being the most powerful woman
of her day in New Orleans.
I'm going to read two scenes.
One is when Marie is 10, and the vision, the African snake
god Damballah, is visiting her.
But she lives in the bayou with her grandmother, who
has kept her from her history, who's kept her from knowledge
of the faith, who's indoctrinated her
with Catholicism and hasn't told her
the secret of her mother, who was crucified
for practicing Voodoo ritual.
"We're mixed bloods."
The voice was melodic as Grandmere stooped, pressing
their faces side to side.
"Creoles veined from the line of French royalty,
mulattoes veined from the line of an African queen,
and Muskogean warrior veined to make the stew wield power."
Grandmere stood, her arms akimbo, her chubby cheeks
breaking into a grin.
"Happy birthday, ma petite."
Marie squirmed, for beyond Grandmere's, she
couldn't connect any faces to the blood.
She'd never seen African or French royalty.
Indians flitted past occasionally on hunts.
Once each year, she felt an unusual loneliness.
"What's the matter, ma petite?"
Bushy brows met.
"Don't you feel well this birthday morning?"
Grandmere's hand reached out.
"You got fever?"
Dodging her rough hand, Marie slipped deeper
between the sheets.
"Go away," she muttered.
"Leave me alone."
Grandmere snorted.
"You feel the sun streaming in here, God's sun?
Don't you know how special it is to feel the sun and be free?"
Marie rolled her eyes.
Grandmere was always insisting that she be grateful
for things, yet it bothered her that the only face she knew
well was Grandmere's.
"I used to slave in master's kitchen, even on birthdays.
Hot, not enough air.
Work.
Slicing, stirring, hauling.
Always work."
"You told me before."
"So I did."
Their gazes held.
Grandmere lifted the rosary attached to her skirt
and scratched the crucifix across her thumb.
"Yet you always seem to forget that in this land,
you're the first of the line to be free."
There was a thin, rising welt of blood.
"Three generations of slaves."
Grandmere sucked the juice from her thumb.
"Mixed bloods.
Our history and power."
Red speckled the coverlet.
"The blood is alive, always."
For hours, Marie had stared at the squiggly veins
in her hands, trying to imagine where the crazy quilt of blood
all went.
In the mirror, she couldn't see Creole or mulatto.
When she pinched skin, she couldn't feel Indian stirring
in her blood.
Tales of slavery were as distant as Grandmere's Bible
characters.
"Why do you mope," Grandmere demanded.
"You should laugh and sing.
Why do you ruin such a lovely celebration day?"
Marie knew everything, yet nothing, about herself.
Being mixed blood didn't matter.
It was what Grandmere didn't say that did.
Her most important question, the one
she prayed to the Virgin about, still lurked behind her eyes.
History was faceless.
On her 10th birthday, Grandmere clanged pots, boiled rice,
and ruined the beans by adding too much pepper.
On her 10th birthday, Marie waited for a sign.
All day, she waited for something magical to happen.
And when it did, they were on the front porch.
The moon glowed yellow, and Marie
commented how fireflies gleam-blinked
like crazed lanterns in the sky.
"So now you speak.
Silly child's got a tongue after all."
Grandmere leaned forward, swatting the air.
"Damn fireflies.
They're burning up their lives' blood."
"Oh," she exhaled.
"Then why do they do it, Grandmere?
What for?"
"Ain't got no sense is all."
"Like Maman," she asked, her head jerking up.
But it was more of a statement than a question.
She had heard this before, heard it,
her body curled tight while shadows
fluttered across her bed as two women fought.
They fought until the front door slammed and one was gone.
Somehow, she knew that the two women fighting
were Maman and Grandmere.
It was Maman who had no sense, Maman who
was burning up her life blood.
But instead of asking where or why Maman wasn't there,
she asked what she always needed to ask.
"Do I look like my Maman?"
Grandmere stopped rocking.
Her hands and lips trembled.
Her body grew rigid like Medusa's stone.
Frightened, Marie wanted to take back her question.
She'd been told never to ask about Maman, and until tonight,
until a firefly, she hadn't.
She stole toward Grandmere, purring
against the old, soft bosom.
Grandmere didn't hug or caress her.
Instead, she said flatly, "lots of God's creatures
have no sense."
Marie leapt down the steps trying to catch fireflies.
She caught one and found the erratic glow surprisingly cool.
"Marie, you come back here."
She snipped off the lighted abdomen.
There was no red blood.
After she threw away the head and the wings,
the light stuck to her palm.
She snapped her wrist, shook her hand,
and finally wept as her nail, like a knife,
scraped the double-ribbed flesh onto the ground.
"Marie."
Grandmere's shrill call rebounded.
She ran, her hair flapping at the back of her knees.
The moon was full.
She pushed through willows, feeling
her head would burst, tumble off her shoulders,
and roll into the grass.
Grandmere talked about the blood being alive, but never
about people.
Wasn't Maman flowing beneath her skin?
She plopped down on a petrified stump.
At its base was a snakeskin, the shell
curled as if it were alive.
She rested her head in her hands.
Breath bounced from her hands to her face.
Grandmere said she'd been born with a caul, a skin netting
that almost suffocated her.
Feeling her twice-warm breath, she
knew what it felt like as a baby, drowning in her own air.
Gasping, she snatched her hands down.
Rainbows swirled in her palms.
A kaleidoscope of blue, red, and yellow
danced, shifting into forms.
She saw herself, bloody, slipping out
of her mother's body, and Grandmere's frantic fingers
ripping the caul away.
Crying out, she clapped her hands.
This wasn't a dream.
It was something else.
Did Grandmere see them, too?
She skipped down the bank like a ghost.
And Maman, whom she'd been forbidden to speak about.
Did she see them, too?
Air pockets bubbled the swamp's surface.
Her stomach quivered against the damp ground.
She couldn't feel herself breathing
or hear the piercing call of an owl.
Marie touched a hand to the water, then snatched it back.
Colors sprung from her fingertips.
A snakelike form rippled the surface.
Then she wasn't sure, for the water became a mirror,
and she saw her own pursed lips and stricken gaze.
Tentatively, she touched the stream again.
The surface glazed.
Three bodies.
Three women.
Grandmere was stretched as dead.
Another woman was crucified on a tree, her face
and breasts pressed against the rotting wood.
Scars lashed her back.
Maman?
And she saw herself older, rising out
of the lake, three lighted candles waxed
to her head and palms.
The vision held.
Then it changed.
Four.
A baby girl sucked at her teat while chubby fingers
grasped the candle's flame.
There was a rush of sights and sounds.
She saw an eel in the muddy water.
A single cricket sounded like 10,000.
Marie felt a whoosh of air cracking through her lungs.
A snapping twig startled her.
She turned, thinking it was Grandmere.
"Grandmere, I've seen things.
Strange things."
But it wasn't Grandmere.
Marie saw a man so black, he blended into the skyline.
There was a ruggedness to him, and odd scars
raised from his forehead into his chin.
She tried to scream as he hunched down
toward her, sprinkling her with narcissus blooms.
He smelled of ash and withered leaves.
Marie closed her eyes, hoping this vision, too,
would disappear.
But his fingers smoothed her shut lids, caressed her cheeks,
then gently teased the dark cores of her breasts.
Her eyes flew open.
"Who are you?"
"Father.
Husband.
Son."
He cupped the valley between her thighs,
rubbing her in slow, even movements.
She sighed.
A sticky dampness blended with her bloomers.
He laughed, and without knowing why, she felt ashamed.
His lips covered hers, sucking the air out of her mouth.
It felt like the time when she was sucked up by the swamp.
Grandmere had rescued her, fingering the mud
from her nose and throat.
She felt painfully alive.
"Grow, ma petite."
Her fist punched through air.
He caught it.
If he wanted, he could shatter her hand,
break her skinny arm in two.
"Hurry and grow," he said.
She swore she never would.
Then he was gone.
Stars formed new patterns.
Her troubled breathing slowed.
Awakening, Marie was startled to find the moon was dying.
Wiping away flowers, she raced through the jungle forest.
Had anything happened?
Somewhere, a dog barked.
Or had she been tricked by non-memories, sleepy dreams?
Sweat layered her skin.
Grandmere sat in the rocker, her jaw slack.
Marie wanted to fling herself into her arms,
but then she remembered Grandmere was angry at her.
Hadn't she run when Grandmere called?
Hadn't she mentioned Maman?
So she held her breath and crept like a Seminole.
The first step creaked.
Grandmere didn't stir.
When her hand pressed the doorknob,
Grandmere roused and said, "no sense trying to fool me."
"I wasn't."
"Don't lie," she said harshly.
"Where have you been?"
"Woods."
"What did you see?"
Marie longed to tell her everything,
but shifting from foot to foot, she
knew as surely as she knew fireflies
didn't spill any blood, Grandmere
didn't want to know the answer.
"Nothing," she murmured.
"Come here, child."
She ran, and fat arms surrounded her.
Grandmere smoothed her freckled nose.
"You smell sweetly."
"Flowers," she said hurriedly.
"I picked them for you."
"Then where are they, ma petite?"
"I left them."
Never before had she told such lies,
but it was all Grandmere's fault.
It was Grandmere who she couldn't
tell about the man, whom she couldn't ask about Maman.
She scrunched her lips into a pout.
Grandmere hummed a note which tore inside her, sharpening
her guilt. "No need to hurry and grow," Grandmere sang.
Then, abruptly, she rocked forward
and asked, "are you hungry?"
Marie nodded and scrambled onto the waiting lap.
She burrowed her head into a rose-scented skin.
Chuckling, Grandmere added, "my stew's too hot.
It'll burn your tongue off.
What can we have that's better?"
"Pig's ears, please," her voice squeaked,
excited by tasting curly-shaped pastries.
And Grandmere smiled so lovingly that Marie
swore that to please her, she would forget everything, forget
turning 10.
The next scene-- where'd the water go?
Hmm?
Behind you.
Behind me.
OK.
Thank you.
The next scene, a great deal has happened to Marie Laveau.
But this is a scene of perhaps her greatest miracle, one
that's recorded in the Daily Picayune
about her ceremony on Lake Pontchartrain.
And in this scene, John, the man who met her in the bayou,
has really lived up to the title of nemesis
and believes that her power as a woman, as a voodooienne
is somehow his.
So in this ceremony, we'll hear a reference
to John, Nattie, a woman who's jealous
of Marie's power, Ribaud, the drummer who
calls the spirits to Marie, and to Louis DeLavier,
a white journalist who loves Marie.
And the love is unrequited.
And Grandmere, in this scene, is actually elsewhere, dying.
Now, pretend it's late.
A ceremony has been going on for hours, a very unauthentic
Voodoo ceremony, and you're trying to reach,
as Marie is, a state of grace.
Marie felt a sense of unreality.
Everything was theatrical.
In each ceremony, she had to fight her way to spirituality.
She fought for some sense that her life wasn't corrupted.
There was a Voodoo that existed beyond John's interpretation
and influence.
The sand was soaking up red blood.
Marie moved through the weaving dancers and toward the altar.
She laid her head down on Damballah's image, no longer
a crude charcoal drawing.
The snake was fashioned with gaudy oil colors.
Behind the painting was the real snake, her python,
spiraling around itself as quiet as a lull during a winter
storm.
Marie prayed.
"Make me special.
Make this world of mine better, bearable."
She always worried what would happen
if Damballah didn't come.
She'd be like Nattie, John, bereft.
She compressed her lips.
Why should Damballah bother to come?
She cried, spilling tears onto the altar.
She was the weakest woman.
She failed love.
She couldn't even hate John properly.
Minutes seemed like hours.
If Damballah didn't come, what would she do?
Marie concentrated on the drums, pressing
the painting of Damballah close to her heart.
The Python had unfurled itself and inched forward.
Marie pressed her lips against its cool skin.
"Forgive me."
Her body was drenched in sweat.
"Feed my spirit."
On the edge of consciousness, she
could feel a flicker of something, someone.
She moaned, slumping forward.
The crowd stilled abruptly, delayed reverence.
They watched as Marie stood, unsteady at first,
then confident in each step as she moved from center stage
and walked toward the lake.
She walked as water swirled about her ankles,
drenched her skirt and knees.
When the water was waist high, she
paused and bowed her head as if in prayer
before diving into the chilly blue water
and disappearing into its depths.
The crowd broke past the guards and roped areas and spread
along the shoreline, trying to sight her.
The crowd wailed, and the drums fell--
--dead.
The audience was bewildered, uncertain.
John was up to his chest in water.
"She's a witch," crowed one of the priests.
"Her body should float."
John raged, kicking at waves.
Marie was dead, he thought.
A suicide to spite him.
"A devil," said another.
"I knew she'd come to no good end."
Ribaud smacked the man's mouth.
On shore, Nattie began a dirge.
Like a rippling wave, the harmony
flashed through the crowd.
Slaves and faithful coloreds, gripped in an enchantment,
sang, "my soul walks free.
Death awaits me.
Guédé, Guédé, have mercy.
Don't let me lose my way."
A reed-like soprano answered the musical phrase.
"Oh, Mary, don't you weep.
Don't you moan.
One of these mornings, bright and fair, take my wings
and cleave the air.
Oh, Mary, don't you weep.
Don't you moan."
Dozens of slaves sang the reassuring Christian song.
There was an afterlife.
Christ, sacrificed on the cross, would rise again.
So, too, would Marie.
At first, the two competing songs
cracked with a painful dissonance.
But gradually, they became a rhythmic counterpoint,
then blended into a new, powerful hymn.
Those who didn't know the words sang vowels or hummed the music
in their throats.
Wails shook the sky.
Stars fell.
The song stretched to the ends of the Earth.
Women fainted and men trembled.
In New Orleans, residents quit whatever they were doing,
sleeping, dancing, loving, claiming angels were crying.
Seamen sailing far beyond the Carolinas thought sirens lured.
And Grandmere stirred, vividly dreaming
of her enslaved African maman, freed and guiding her home.
In the mourning song, John heard his own impending death.
Tears filled Ribaud's eyes.
His Marie was dead, just like his pretty daughter.
Nattie, in her funereal wail, felt both sorry and angry
at herself.
Through Marie, she'd hoped to find her blessed pathway
to Damballah.
She'd foolishly lost her chance.
She'd never gone beyond jealousy.
Louis DeLavier wanted forgiveness.
When he'd first seen Marie enter the water,
he'd begun beating his way to the forefront of the crowd.
He'd ripped off his boots and jacket
and run to the water's edge.
He dived and nearly shouted from the shocking cold.
He'd swum, crazed and erratic, calling Marie
until his strength gave out.
He hadn't seen any signs.
No floating body, no piece of clothing rising to the surface.
His lungs ached from successive dives
beneath the dark and chilly water.
Damballah had taken her to a quiet place.
Marie felt cocooned.
Damballah was her best lover.
She felt secure, happy, rooted in an African tradition
she sensed rather than knew.
Damballah wanted to go to sea.
She couldn't feel anything other than the desire to be immersed.
She and Damballah dove.
They were free, sinking low and deep.
She breathed the thick, heady water.
Damballah liked plankton tickling his belly.
A school of fish swished by.
Giggling, Mary stroked a turtle's back
and kissed a sleepy-eyed catfish.
The world was cool, vibrant with blues, greens,
and specks of yellow and red in the gentle overwhelming
darkness.
They swam to the center of the lake and sat.
Damballah was whispering from inside Marie's head.
The language was strange, clicking and rhythmic,
and Marie recognized it as an African dialect she'd heard
among newly captured slaves.
Gradually, she began to understand.
"You belong to me," said Damballah.
"You always have, and you always will."
Agwé, the sea god, appeared, pulling a ship
as big and as wide as a whale.
Black people were on the ship, all different shades of Black.
Some were slaves dressed in coarse cotton and chains.
Others were free coloreds dressed
as blacksmiths, shopkeepers.
Others were lovely mulatto and quadroon
girls dressed in ball gowns and silk tea dresses.
All were beckoning Marie.
Grandmere was in the stern, shouting, "home.
Let's go home."
"Home," said Damballah.
And Marie was rushing forward, stumbling on the ocean bottom,
slipping on shells, upsetting the pace of seahorses
and schools of fish.
"Marie."
Grandmere was waving.
Marie felt indescribable joy.
Beside Grandmere, steering the rudder,
was a majestic Black woman in brightly colored robes.
"You are me," she said.
On Grandmere's right with Maman, beckoning Marie aboard.
And on the deck was a small child with long, black braids.
"These are all of who you are," murmured Damballah.
"Mixed blood, but your blood flows because
of and through me, Damballah, the god of your ancestors.
We sail toward Africa, home."
The women and child formed a circle with Marie
in the center, its heart.
And around their circle, the other passengers formed circles
around circles until they all clung together, weeping
and singing and praising the core
of their multiplying circle, Marie Laveau
possessed by Damballah.
The whale-like ship arrived home.
Agwé, on his broad back, carried passengers ashore.
Off the ship, everyone became a wandering, awestruck child
again.
Marie cried.
Africa was Teché magnified.
Every particle of her being felt reborn.
Love was in the lush foliage, the caw-cawing of birds.
Rebirth was in the fertile black soil
and among animals poised in the shade
and on the limbs of trees.
"It's time," said Damballah.
"No," Marie mouthed.
"It's time."
The landscape and people and animals became spirit.
And through her eyes, the spirits flew into her soul.
And she cried out at having so much history inside her.
"This is who you are."
At first, Marie thought it was Grandmere singing.
Then she realized it was her own voice crooning.
"This is who I am."
Up she flew through ageless and ancient waters,
bursting into the air.
Marie was convinced she could pluck the moon.
Then her body lowered to the surface.
Damp, tangled hair clung to her face and back.
Her yellow skirt and blouse outlined her curves,
the soft swelling of her abdomen.
She walked on the surface of the water as if it were earth.
DeLavier, resting, floating on his back,
was the first to see Marie up close.
He flipped onto his stomach, disbelieving as she walked,
her feet steady on the tips of waves.
A rainbow guided her path.
There was no hesitancy, no awe, only a sense
of labored sadness, disappointment about her.
Louis couldn't speak.
Childhood prayers flooded his mind.
"There has to be a God," he thought.
Marie walked past him, focusing on her followers.
In the water, Damballah had shown her
how to reconnect herself to both the past and the future.
Time spirals outward from the center,
and the center was Damballah, who
could make spirits and the spirit in her whole.
And though there was still so very much to do and so very
much to consider, though she felt tentative and insecure,
Marie felt a new lightness of being.
She wasn't a firefly, burning her own air.
There was a light inside her, guiding her
if she let it to peace and safety.
The crowd cried out in amazement as they
saw Marie walk across the lake toward them.
The people fell to their knees, chanting.
"Damballah.
Miracle.
Resurrection."
[APPLAUSE]