is April, terribly ironic considering she is a survivor of sexual assault.  She has taught me how to look bravely into the truth, into living through and past what was done to her and her community, her family and her friends.

In honor of this month and all the victims of sexual abuse, I would like to remember some of them each day.

For yesterday I would like to remember three sexual abuse victims from the Bible–Tamar, Dinah, and the unnamed concubine in Judges 19.

you could take a mirror and draw things on your face

smudge out lines,

erase gray hair

or add stuff

like that handlebar moustache you have always wanted?

what would you erase

or embellish?

and how would you face your heart with the truth

of all you had done

hidden

or defaced.

we are constantly required to make decisions, bread or soup? bus or vespa? helmet or baseball cap?

these decisions define us public/publically, private/privately.  the more public our lives, the greater the chances that yahoo will trumpet the strangeness of our latte choices (as in…j.lo, vente mocha chai, who knew?)

but then if our lives are private there are people we abide with who will not only know about the chai, they will know about our control issues, weakness for french fries, our flashpoints of anger.  in other words, our weaknesses, our sins.  they may not know all of them (who knew?) but they will know enough.

i have heard it said both that we are defined by who loves us and by what we love

Who loves you?  What do you love?

Palm Sunday

one day i would like to be secure enough to publish a book of verse called simply “old words.”  I have the ability to do this thanks to J.’s patronage and createspace, and the sheer existence of old words, some of which I have put together in abstrusely meaningful units.

I recently received a great gift in regard to some of these old words.  A dear, dear cousin and I connected and in the connection we have had some wonderful conversations about our family history and literary heritage.  I told her I had written a couple of poems about her mother and unearthed these poems and emailed them to her.

I was surprised at how good it was to share them with her and also to see myself again the way I was when I wrote them.

old words, ordinary words can offen capture beautiful people, eternal stories, lives joined by blood and water.