Unknown's avatar

About Elea Lee

Foster parent, adopting parent, family advocate, educator, homeschool parent

The Faraday Box

Close to 

La noche de Los muertos

I open the

Faraday box

Keep one leg out, door ajar, 

Bit of light

Lent by a friend

You inhabited when

The world was still

An old wine skin

Blood and Spirit

I tell myself this 

New litany of 

Places for the dead

Who will all 

rise

Because of you

They kept it 

sealed for centuries 

Told ourselves we could 

be tourists there

Run our mortals’ hands along the stone

Ledge, trace rock, and DNA

Rise 

Rise 

Unshrouded Light

Already Rome.

I am not much of a pro-sports fan, although I try sometimes for the sake of my partner.

I feel less inclined to try now that the famously laconic Gregg Popovich had words for this recent election and the folk who voted red.

So many things you said worth noting Mr. P, but the one that stuck out the most?  Like if I could only pick one thing you said to comment on–You are afraid we are Rome?

Long been Rome, I would say.

 We have not only tolerated legalized infanticide for the last 43 years through Roe v. Wade, we now allow the concessions which provide the service of salting, vacuuming, dismembering, and dehumanizing small, voiceless humans through the months of their development in the womb both federal funds and deep privacy in order to abort and also harvest the bodies of these exploited children.

If you were to ask an ordinary person, say a woman or a disabled  person–would you rather be verbally belittled or carefully vivisected for spare parts?

Belittled, thanks very much.

The latter-death by legal and medical caveat.  Pretty disenfranchising.

To be clear, very clear–we, the citizens of the United States, have long been Rome.  Infanticide is infanticide is infanticide, Mr. P. 

How many millions of female, minority, Muslim, immigrant, disabled American voters did not vote in this election because we legalized their murder years ago?

No words will bring them back.

Minimum

He says

The least of these in the language of childhood

Neither emperors nor governors nor bards

Gather the little ones

…least of these

Army of small

Wanderers in the world 

They look for a Savior

Older Brother King

Who can 

Calm the storm

Speak peace to the wind

And tell all bedtime stories

With hope at the beginning and the end

Of each hard letter 

INRI

The  least of these-

M.

Roll the stone away

Jesus of Nazareth, King of the…

Minimum.

Sacrament

the tape is a blur of

ordinary splendor

songs sung loud in a messy 

house vivid patchwork 

some mention of a circus

close to the tear in the hand-made quilt

I touch your brow

tell you

take your medicine before you go out to play

Round, pink, chewable analgesic 

as you lift your head to receive the pill

Eucharist in the living room,

old and beautiful 

Words for “good” and “grace”

So close to your already liturgical

Beautiful like…

A rose

A ruby

A diamond

A butterfly 

A boy in flight

…if we had a fort..

Weighted Blanket

in a fit of unease 

she has an out-of-body experience 

Rising above the squalor

Imagining what it would be like

To live inside the perfect house

Instead–she dusts the counters and all the edges

with cinnamon to deter the sugar ants

Beats the air with questions

Washes and re-washes clothes, stones, teeth 

Delays bodily functions  

To search for

-The weighted blanket-

Surrogate mother/synthetic comforter

Lyrics/verses 

of a lullaby sung softly by the

Real One

Fished Out

I still have unanswered questions for the hand-sized catfish I pulled out of the Blanco River today.

It was caught in some debris, entangled in some fishing line.

Hard to get to.

Weirdly specific salvation (if you don’t believe in a God who sees stuck fish).

But if you do…

You wonder who was the fisher with the broken line?

When was he last here?

How long has this darkish catfish been stuck in the line?

Will it live? Line cut, hook still in?

The Gospel is chocked full of fish stories.

But they don’t all get saved, hook or no hook still stuck in the craw.

And then there is me: fished out by Jesus, standing wet in the afternoon sun, inventorying fish stories.

  • The one about the guy stuck in one for three days…
  • The one where the nets broke…
  • The one where the fish seems to have swallowed a Roman coin.

…. Caesar’s likeness on the coin in its belly.

….No sign but Jonah

….The empire of Rome long gone

this one small fish wriggles free

marvels at the hidden depths

in the quotidian

stories of being

fished out.

George Instead?

having an ordinary name 

(Think cow or child’s toy)

Means misnomer–

Betty, Becky, pieces left out

Or added

My favorite-gleanor

So close 

To gleaner

I ask myself

What if it was George?  Harold? Londerson? Jamal?

Would I still 

Recognize your voice

Trace the familiar 

Lines along 

Your hands, your face?

Your gaze holds firm

Your love unswerving

Written, Word

Come to the

come to the dark

stones skipped along the surface 

will sink into concentric ghosts

these stars 

hard to measure 

Line up–

School girls in bright

White dresses 

Wade in

knees, waist, chest

As if they had forgotten

They are luminous,

formed of fire and light.

A System of Touch

these interlocking pieces-

a woman in the crowd reaches out to touch 

Slowing down motion

to Jairus’ daughter

Take this stranger by the hand

(For science, of course)

Blindfold emotion 

-While the girl lies dying-

Somehow temporarily 

All of us

nailed to this single day in history 

When you let go of 

Everything you had a right to hold

Go where we never 

want to go

Then tell Mary

Don’t touch me

Last trace of hell still on my skin

You draw us to your 

Broken.

Make us whole again

With this system of touch.