Mary Magdalene Utters Words of Wisdom
By the hard rocks where the well was, they’d gathered;
the morning sun, rising boisterous, ecclesiastic,
over the tortured mountain rock. It would be hot today.
Mathew & Judas stood there, beside her, robed, sandaled.
She said, “I’ve been with the Master; he is well.” Then:
“The wickedness of each day is sufficient; it’s what marks us
with the candid will to survive, until we thrive …and we’ll thrive
in that light that has no diocese to it – except that it is
beyond these garments.” The men stood silent, listened.
And then she said: “Workers deserve their food. We who work
against the ignorance that binds and ties us to ourselves –
to that greed that will not let us pass the door of light in us –
will earn, and be fulfilled in that other food that has no false
apostolicity to it. And it is earned only by that careful choosing
that disrobes one’s self from enormity. The work is small:
it passes us through only the smallest place: and it has no trust
of enormity, which is the struggle of the falsified eyes, always:
and it always blocks the beginning of the way. Mathew & Judas
sipped water from cups, sat quietly on the red side of the well,
listened further. Mary then said: “Disciples resemble their
teachers: they learn from their wisdom, and also their folly,
and then they must find their own way home, through the
ignoble false light that blocks even the teacher, and then
the light pours down. And when the truth-light pours down
(upon us) we are disassembled but emerge victorious,
and it will take standing in that place of reach, when we strip
ourselves of garments, that Spirit is disclosed. And then she said,
“The Master has told us just this: One who does not stand
in the darkness cannot see the light. And those who come
after us will dwell in that unwashed riddle and many
will die. It is best that we try to drink from that well
that has no water in it, but just vision. And if we can
just drink the vision, we will see the birth of a new soul
into the world. And then we will have done our work.”
Ken Meisel is a poet and psychotherapist from the Detroit area. He is a 2012 Kresge Arts Literary Fellow, Pushcart Prize nominee, best of the net nominee, winner of the Liakoura Prize and the author of nine poetry collections. His new book, The Light Most Glad of All, was published in 2023 by Kelsay Press. It was reviewed by Tipton Poetry Journal and Trampoline Magazine. Other collections include: Studies Inside the Consent of a Distance (Kelsay Books: 2022) and Our Common Souls: New & Selected Poems of Detroit (Blue Horse Press: 2020). He has work in Crab Creek Review, Concho River Review, San Pedro River Review, Panapoly, Sheila-Na-Gig and The MacGuffin.
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