Indelicate is he who loathes
The aspect of his fleshy clothes, --
The flying fabric stitched on bone,
The vesture of the skeleton,
The garment neither fur nor hair,
The cloak of evil and despair,
The veil long violated by
Caresses of the hand and eye.
Yet such is my unseemliness:
I hate my epidermal dress,
The savage blood's obscenity,
The rags of my anatomy,
And willingly would I dispense
With false accouterments of sense,
To sleep immodestly, a most
Incarnadine and carnal ghost.

I                                                                ­            
I've never hit my children.
My own father spanked me perhaps ten times:
for riding my bike on a busy street,
for "acting up" in church.
I have no nostalgia for these beatings
(as in: "Sure glad Pa whupped some sense inta me as a young'n—
   don't know where I'd be if he hadn't.")
  
He would make me pull down my pants and underpants
enough to expose my buttocks,
position me between his legs so he could hold my own legs still,
bend me over his left leg with his left arm,
and hit me with his bare right hand.
What I remember as much as the pain
is his angry expression: Was he angry at me?
Or at something else?
I believe it was mostly an unpleasant duty;
usually done because my mother had asked him.
They were afraid we'd become juvenile delinquents.
  
I suppose his own father had spanked him--
and that he, in turn, had been spanked by his father--
a family tradition. . . .
  
There've been times with my own children--
God knows they're far from perfect--
where I've almost given in to anger.
Somehow I've always caught myself,
always remembered that unseemliness. . . .



            II
Our house is kind of ugly from the front, a split-level
with the whole left side facing the street being a solid brick wall.
Our picture window faces the grass and trees of the back yard.
Each morning, no matter how much of a hurry I'm in,
I open the curtains to this window--
that my children might see not just the man-made objects of our living room
but some hint of the grace and beauty of the whole, great, natural world.

I would rather walk a path of admitted ignorance,
Desiring of knowledge; than rest, in superior repose,
And seek out the "meaning of life" with exuberance,
Than hold company with one who claims he knows.

I would rather read lessons written by fools,
Who gained understanding in repeated mistakes.
Than listen to lectures from scholars in schools,
Who claim all -knowing, though no chances did take.

I would rather share some tea with a child,
Whose innocence inspires me to pray.
Than bread and wine with revered priest,
Whose hypocratic actions lead me astray.

I would rather discover beauty in a foe
And throw off my old regard,
Than unseemliness in a long time friend,
And assume new thoughts, marred.

“A curse!” my fist upraised in spiteful pain.
Departing country of my birth, upturned
By war, disease. This England, inhumane,
Where all my past and aspirations burned.

West Indies bound, with brothers, to fulfill
Indentured servitude on Nevis land.
Eight years I worked and toiled there until
Emancipation from contract’s command.

But all the while in service to my debt,
I learned of herbs and healing charms and rites,
From African descendants that I met,
Who gave me knowledge under moonlit nights.  

The practices and skills I mastered there -
Twas Voodoo that I learned and brought to bear.  

Twas Voodoo that I learned and brought to bear,
And practiced healing methods as my trade,
As blowing winds of change were in the air,
When plans to sail to lands anew were made.

St. Mary’s County, Maryland would be
The place where I would strive to build a life
Of quiet service in community
Where tolerance and peace supplanted strife.

I worked the fertile fields with grit and pride
That all my efforts lifted those in need
Through persevering work that dignified
My efforts for the village to succeed.

Despite my earnest struggle to upraise,
Suspicion always seemed to stalk my days.

Suspicion always seemed to stalk my days,
By whispered words or cautious, wary glance.
Though healing practice often won me praise,
My dealings often seemed to feel askance.

The Puritanic disposition here
Would view outsiders with uneasiness.
The nonconformists lived with modest fear
Of retribution for unseemliness.

A delicate relationship maintained
A peace between the members of the church,
And denizens who lived there unconstrained
By dogma, doctrine, or of Christian smirch.

This tenuous existence would unbind
In Sixteen Ninety Seven’s wintertime.

In Sixteen Ninety Seven’s wintertime,
Calamities unfolded in the town.
The first, a death, was thought to be a crime,
A charge of mine would accidentally drown.

Another came of unexpected cold
That set just after Samhain of that year.
It stayed beyond what almanac foretold,
And racked the hearts of men with mortal fear.

An illness plagued the homes of old and young,
Consistently defying scripture’s laws.
As bells of solemn funerary rung,
Their beasts of burden died without a cause.

An icy grip of fear would tribulate,
As anxious Christians sought to obviate.

As anxious Christians sought to obviate
The pestilence that hereupon was set,
They sought official seal to perpetrate
The persecution of suspected threat.

The Council met to hear complaints of those
Affected by suspicious tragedies.
The governor declared a writ to discompose,
Evict the ‘witch’ - the source of maladies.  

Expressing reservations, some of them
Suggested much more civil remedy.
But hateful brutes moved swiftly to condemn
What they had judged to be their enemy.

As howling wind and snow befell the night
The mob set out to remedy the blight.

The mob set out to remedy the blight,
That they suspected had to come from me.
A ‘witch’ they claimed, had surely caused their plight,
And only death could end her blaspheme.

No trial, judge or jury sealed my fate
Just superstitious Christians and their fear,
With burning torches lit to conflagrate,
My home, my peace, and make me disappear.

They came for me, encircling my house,
They came for me, when I was warm in bed,
They came for me, as silent as a mouse.
They came for me, in hopes to see me dead.

The flames engulfed my cottage straightaway,
I had but seconds to escape the fray.

I had but seconds to escape the fray,
With nothing but the clothes upon my back,
There into blinding blizzard cast away,
Absconding from unmerciful attack.

I trudged through blinding snows with  helplessness,
And found no sheltered harbor to protect
My body, from the tempest’s dreadfulness,
Or soul, that God would surely soon collect.

Exposure quickly forced a quivered breath,
With freezing force that I could not suppress.
Before my body fin’lly froze to death,
I screamed with all my might and forcefulness:

“My wrathful spell, on thee, I appertain!”
“A curse!” my fist upraised in spiteful pain.