Amethyst Review

First Exit

The day I would lay down
to face the sun. In the darkest
hour, they told me not to fear
what, in my mind, I had already
repeated. Because to think is to do.
And since I thought of my death,
I had died already.

I watched those around me
in their slim tombs, the length
of their bodies thick, horizontal.

They were to prepare my body, remove
all but the essential heart
so that I could stare into
the eye for eternity.
They wrote falcons on my coffin
so that my son could become god.
I was meant to keep forever
locked within the walls of Osiris.
But, like a god, I passed
back through life
as through a dark pupil.

It has been miles since.
I return every hundred years or so
through strange doors.
The vulture of heaven is no more
than the stomach through which one passes
at times. I am no more
cemented in eternity
than the crumbled offerings
presented at my first death.

Like the mortals, I keep
repeating this dying
and rising from the dead.

 

L.B. Stringfellow writes both verse and prose poetry, often exploring themes of transformation, woundedness, and interdependence in her poetry.  She grew up in the Southern US, has worked as a university instructor and as a professional tutor, and holds an MA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing.

Hidden

I have lost my boy
in a perpetual game
of hide and go seek.

I have looked
everywhere.

Is he in heaven?
He’s certainly not
in the other place.

Will he be found
only in my heart,
my memories?

Is he simply buried,
a star above his head,
waiting for the rapture,
or for the rest of us to join him
and become stardust.

 

Sam Norman has been teaching high school for 16 years at Bacon Academy in Colchester, CT. Until now, most of what Sam has written has been shared only with family and a few friends, though he has been published in Bacon Academy’s literary journal, The Salmon River Review. Most of Sam’s recent poetry focuses on a terrible tragedy. Sam’s son, Ben, just 20 years old, lost his life in a weather-related traffic accident on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2018. Sam lives in Coventry, Connecticut with his wife Teri, their children, Becca and Daniel, a bunch of chickens, and their beloved dogs, Cloudy and Ripple.

Unicorns in The Hood Part 26

i walked along the smoking mirrors
of tescatlipocatl and the day keepers
the ones that swallow keys and skeletons
walked
until i found
the mouth of queztalcoatl
feathered serpent
stretching into
the womb of water
where water births stars
i tried to walk
into the mouth of quetzalcoatl
and found myself
back inside smoking mirrors
of tescatlipocatl and the night keepers
the ones that swallow dreams and visions
walked away
again
until i found
the mouth of queztalcoatl
feathered serpent
stretching into the water
of my eyes
queztalcoatl
swallowed my hope
and gave me
feather serpent
wings
to place
in my tongue
to remember
to fly when
i speak

 

Israel Francisco Haros Lopez was born in East Los Angeles to immigrant parents of Mexican descent. Israel graduated from U.C. Berkeley and received a degree in English Literature and Chicano Studies followed by an M.F.A in Creative Writing. At formal and informal visual art spaces, Israel creates and collaborates in many interdisciplinary ways including poetry, performance, music, visual art, and video making and curriculum creation. His work addresses a multitude of historical and spiritual layered realities of border politics, identity politics, and the re-interpretation of histories.

Israel has been published online and in print poetry journals and magazines, including, Rise Up, Across The Margin, La Bloga, The anthology ‘Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice’. He has two collections of poetry ‘Waterhummingbirdhouse: A Poetry Codex’ and ‘Mexican Jazz Vol. 1’.

Allow

How different it is
to force
instead of allow.
To let it come to you.
Unfurl.
Without your touch.
Inside a flower bloom
without a worry
if the petals overlap.
To relinquish. Your plan
might not be the one.
Unfold another way,
yet considered
inside magic
that you desire.

 

Ali Grimshaw is the author of Flashlight Batteries, https://flashlightbatteries.blog/ a poetry blog for those struggling in darkness and tough times. Her poems have been published in Vita Brevis, Poetry Breakfast and Ghost City Review.

Prayer flags

When I exhale,
the Tibetan flags
suspended from a shelf
above my desk flutter–
sending prayers
into the world.

Now when breezes
move through leaves
of the golden shower
tree and neighboring
coconut palms, I see
them as prayer.

When wind ripples
river, it sets small
stones afloat, carries
twigs and koa branches
toward the ocean
as offerings.

Is movement arising
out of stillness
prayer?
And is stillness
the sacred ground?

 

Carol Alena Aronoff, Ph.D. is a psychologist, teacher, poet. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and won several prizes. She was twice nominated for a Pushcart.  She published a chapbook and five books of poetry: The Nature of Music, Cornsilk, Her Soup Made the Moon Weep, Blessings From an Unseen World and Dreaming Earth’s Body (with Betsie Miller-Kusz).

 

A Day of Peace

Red sky at morning, sailors take warning

White gull soars into the blushing sky,
drops a clam shell on the beach,

leaving it
for the boy to find.

He’s never seen the sea before
but he’s seen fragmented beauty

in his shattered city,
of broken statues.

.

Dark clouds roll in from the horizon,
the boy picks up the broken shell,

puts it in his pocket,
a token of hope.

Mackerel sky, mackerel sky, never long wet and never long dry.

One raindrop falls,
then another

landing on the woman’s greying hair,
dripping down her sun-weathered face.

She sniffs the air, smiles
at the scent of damp earth

imagines the corn that will rise
from the thirsty ground,

smiles, as the raindrops fall faster,
drumbeats upon the earth,

waking it,
quenching it

with more than her blood–
both sated and alive.

Once in a blue moon

the sky clears,
the moon silvered-full hovers

over sea and land,
rising—

the woman stands on her porch and watches it,
listening

to the sounds of the night,
thinking she can hear the corn grow,

or the moon
humming a lullaby for the fitful world.

In his new bedroom,
the boy takes the shell from his pocket,

gazes up to the sky,
he hears no thuds,

no sniper rat-tat-tat-tats,
only the wind sighing, blowing

him dreams of flying like a gull
over a moonlit sea.

 

Merril D. Smith is an independent scholar with a Ph.D. in American History and numerous books on history and gender issues. Her poetry and stories have appeared recently in Rhythm & Bones, Vita Brevis, Streetlight Press, Ghost City, Twist in Time, and Mojave Heart Review. Her blog is at merrildsmith.com.

With and Without

                for Meghan Rose

Shimmering shells dry
on the kitchen table—
fragile like one’s heart
Yet, able to hold the sea
like love— un-
quenchable—lives en-
twined.

Overwhelming jungle
rhapsody of stars
needle-sharp, unblinking
the steady gaze of
my daughter’s eyes.

 

M.J. Iuppa  is the Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor Program and Lecturer in Creative Writing at St. John Fisher College; and since 2000 to present, is a part time lecturer in Creative Writing at The College at Brockport. Since 1986, she has been a teaching artist, working with students, K-12, in Rochester, NY, and surrounding area. Most recently, she was awarded the New York State Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Adjunct Teaching, 2017. She has four full length poetry collections, This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017), Small Worlds Floating (2016) as well as Within Reach (2010) both from Cherry Grove Collections; Night Traveler (Foothills Publishing, 2003); and 5 chapbooks. She lives on a small farm in Hamlin NY.

The Bag without any Bottom 3/3

Wayne-Daniel Berard

To her, the icon resembled Eve, the mother of all and the mother of sorrows. She, too, poured out her heart to the image. She spoke of a parting with her first love, the death of her husband, the departing of her son to find his fortune, a son who had never returned. She wept, and for the first time, Ket’her wept with the penitent.

“What prayer do you say?” asked Ket’her asked her through his tears.

“I have no prayer,” she answered, “but I have a song.” And slowly she began to hum a tune; it had no words, but it seemed to Ket’her that there was a tiny flame in the melody, a flame which glowed like a lamp before an icon of the Virgin.

Gently the woman took the icon from Ket’her’s hands and held it before his gaze. He kissed it tenderly, and she did the same. They then exchanged the kiss of peace upon the forehead, he to hers and she to his. It was at that moment that the Abbot returned to his cell.

The look on his face changed quickly from one of disbelief to one of rage. He opened his mouth to roar and raised his hand as if to strike, but the woman calmly stood and placed herself between the master and his novice. Slowly, the Abbot’s hand dropped; the woman glided from the cell and was gone.

For a moment there was stillness. Then the Abbot came to himself, hmphed and blustered as if he were going to explode, and strode from the cell. A few seconds later, Ket’her heard the Abbey bell tolling furiously, calling all the monks to chapel.

Ket’her dreaded this assembly. He was the last to enter; as he did, a brother pointed toward an empty chair in the center of the nave. Opposite it, before the high altar, sat the Abbot in full vestments.

“You!” he thundered from his wooden throne. “You who are unworthy to bear the name brother — hear the charges against you! We saved your life as you lay dying in the forest. We tended to you and accepted you as one of our order. And how have you repaid our kindness?

“In your vanity, you have taken upon yourself the office of confessor, which one must labor years to obtain, deceiving yourself that it was pity and not pride which motivated you. What is worse, you have desecrated these holy grounds with pagan rites and rituals of the infidels!

“And then — crime of crimes! – you have permitted a woman into our Abbey, into the very cell of the Abbot, where she was witnessed kissing you, a monk consecrated to the life of chastity.

“For any one of these crimes alone you could be banished from this place; for all of them you will be fortunate to escape a fiery death at the stake.

“Speak, then, spawn of ingratitude! Our order’s blessed rule guarantees a defense, even for the likes of you. What have you to say?”

Ket’her at first stood speechless. Then, haltingly, he began,

“Reverend Abbot, brothers of the Abbey, all my life I have sought only one thing: that which is inexhaustible, that pursuit or person or passion which knows no end, and to which one could give his entire life — a bag without any bottom. Many times I thought I had found it . . . in race and culture, in commerce and riches, even in love. But each time the bag, although deep, turned out to be finite. I soon reached the bottom of each experience, the disappointing end of all that it could teach me.

“When you found me and brought me here, I thought that at long last I had found my heart’s desire. But it seems that the faith you practice also has boundaries, limits. Although we speak of compassion, we will only extend it to those of our faith; though we declare that all are children of God, only men as seen as truly worthy.

“I thank you, dear brothers, for saving my life. I thank you for the kindnesses you have showered on me, and for the learning I have gained here. But I cannot repent of the compassion that I, unworthy as I am, have shown to those who came to me uninvited. If there is a god, he alone brought them here, and to him alone will I answer.”

“If?” bellowed the Abbot, rising up enraged. “If there is a God? How dare you blaspheme in this sacred place! By your own words, you show yourself unworthy of God, and of this” — the Abbot pulled Ket’her’s icon from beneath his vestment — “his holy mother, whose image you will never be permitted to desecrate again . . .!”

At this he turned and smashed the icon into splinters on the stone altar behind him. All the assembly gasped.

“Now go, before your life is forfeited! With nothing you entered this place, with nothing shall you depart!”

Ket’her stood up. For a second, he meant sheepishly to withdraw. But then, in his mind’s eye, faces began to appear. He saw the men who had refused him a fair price for his home and his sheep. He saw those in the Great City who had snubbed him in his poverty. He saw the face of Zod, who had pretended to value him, but had stolen his only love from his side. Finally, he saw the face of Abbot Dominus, who had destroyed Ket’her’s only link to his mother.

Lit by a fire within, Ket’her raised dark, smoldering eyes toward the Abbot. Purposefully he strode slowly toward the high altar. The face of the Abbot began to change; Ket’her saw fear twitching at corners of his mouth, and dread fill his eyes like tears. The Abbot began to tremble; every monk was frozen in his place.
Ket’her raised his hand as if to strike the Abbot, but held it in the air. The Abbot, shaking with fright, leaned back in his throne, which toppled sideways down the great steps, leaving the Abbot cringing beneath it, his arm shielding his face as he whimpered.

Ket’her threw off his monk’s habit and walked from the chapel in silence. At the Abbey gatehouse, he exchanged his sandals for a pair of boots, donned a woodsman’s tunic over his breeches and set out once again into the world alone.
He wished to avoid the town, neither did he want to plunge into the forest. He decided to follow the creek that fed the Abbey’s well, to see where it might lead him.

For many days he followed the stream, which soon became a river. Ket’her followed on through flat, muddy bottom land, until at last, forty days later, he and the river reached the sea.

Ket’her had never before seen the sea. To him, it was like the surface of the clouds he had seen when he’d herded his sheep in the high mountains, only the sea was even more vast. It seemed to have no end.

As he walked along the seaside, in the distance he saw figures sitting beside a weathered cabin on a bluff. Ket’her, very tired and hungry, turned toward the cabin.

At the top of the bluff sat a woman, and at her feet a circle of children. She did not seem to notice Ket’her; she was engrossed in a story she was telling.
“Children,” she said in a voice like light, “have you ever heard the story of Solomon and the Demon of a Thousand Names?”

Ket’her stopped short. On her right hand, the woman wore a puppet, made of an upside-down bag. On it she had painted eyes, a nose and a mouth, and around its head she had wrapped red cloth in the shape of a turban . . .

The woman began to tell the tale in a strange voice, a voice that Ket’her recognized as his own. Indeed, she told the story exactly as Ket’her had so often done, with the same inflections and pauses. At first, Ket’her thought that he was being made a fool of, but there was no mockery in the woman’s voice, and the children loved it.

When she had finished, the children applauded, then filed off down the bluff. Only then did the woman turn her face to Ket’her, who knew her immediately. She was the penitent who had come to the door of the Abbot, it seemed a very long time before.

“What is your name?” whispered Ket’her.

“Ket’hera,” answered the woman.

“What is that on your hand, Ket’hera?” asked Ket’her, barely speaking.

“It is the bag without any bottom,” she replied. “Come and see.”

She handed the bag-puppet to Ket’her. He reached in his hand. Inside, he thought he could feel the soft wool of the sheep, just as he had when he was a boy . . .

He dug deeper, and thought that the scent of his mother’s cooking rose from the bag, and that he could feel her long, silky hair brush across his fingertips . . .

He placed both hands into the marvelous bag; his muscles ached as from exertion and work and the making of profit . . .

The bag rose to his shoulders; Ket’her swore he could hear the ancient songs of his people rising from its depths . . .

Finally, he climbed into the sack as into a sleeping bag, for he was very weary. As he held the bag closely to himself, he thought that he could feel Fatyma’s heart beating softly against his own . . .

And still his feet felt no bottom to the bag.

“Life, life itself?” Ket’her murmured sleepily. “Is this the bag I have sought?”
Ket’hera’s quiet laugh was the opposite of disparaging.

“No, life is merely its holder,” she replied. “You, yourself are the bag without any bottom. For your own endlessness was this all created.”

She slid easily into the bag beside him, kissed his forehead and both his sleepy eyes, and rested her head gently upon his chest.

“Tomorrow is another day, Brother Found,” Ket’hera whispered.

 

Wayne-Daniel Berard teaches English and Humanities at Nichols College in Dudley, MA. Wayne-Daniel is a Peace Chaplain, an interfaith clergy person, and a member of B’nai Or of Boston. He has published widely in both poetry and prose, and is the co-founding editor of Soul-Lit, an online journal of spiritual poetry. His latest chapbook is Christine Day, Love Poems. He lives in Mansfield, MA with his wife, The Lovely Christine.

The Bag Without any Bottom 2/3

Wayne-Daniel Berard

One late summer evening, when the air was heavy and perfumed with jasmine, he went for a walk in his master’s garden. Unnoticed, he came upon Fatyma, now a young woman of shy but glowing loveliness. She was sitting on a stone bench beneath a hanging of wisteria, singing to herself,

“My love, I know
that I am young,
but mine is not
a childish heart.
Your wisdom to
my innocence
should wed,
and never,
ever part.”

Ket’her gazed at Fatyma, radiant beneath the wisteria, and saw her for the first time as a grown woman. He took a step, his foot touched a dry twig and snapped it . . .

In a panic, Fatyma parted the wisteria vines and saw Ket’her standing there. Her heart raced with embarrassment and love, and she lowered her gaze to the ground, crying. Ket’her rushed forward when he saw her tears; tenderly he took the young girl in his arms, then lowered his lips to hers . . .

Never before had Ket’her been in love. Everything else, every joy, every trial he had ever experienced seemed nothing compared to this. He and Fatyma spent every spare moment together, and learned from each other the art and passion of love.

“Surely I have found it now,” Ket’her sighed to himself. “Love! Love is the only true bag without a bottom. No matter how deeply I delve into my love for Fatyma, how often I think of her, or how closely I hold her, I never reach the end of this feeling. Truly love is all.”

One evening, lying secretly in each other’s arms, Ket’her and Fatima vowed to marry as soon as possible. “Tomorrow I will approach your father,” Ket’her said. “He thinks of me as a son. Surely he will welcome our news.”
But that morning, Ket’her’s request was anything but welcomed.

“What? You dog of the streets?!” cried Zod. “You betrayer of trust, perverter of children! Do you think my beautiful daughter is for the likes of you? No, already I have arranged a marriage for her with old Mikla, the vintner. That’s an alliance worthy of this house. When he goes to Paradise, his vineyards and wine presses will come to our family, and I will not only sell the wine, but own its production as well. My daughter will be the wealthiest woman in the City, not the wife of some wandering storyteller from nowhere!” And immediately Zod had Ket’her expelled from his home, and sent his daughter away on a ship, its destination known only to him, where she should stay until her wedding with old Mikla, the City dweller.

Zod’s men hurried Ket’her out of the City, with only a few possessions in a rucksack, and none of his gold. Zod then used his influence with the Lord of the City, who proclaimed Ket’her banished upon pain of death for the crime of seduction of the young.

Ket’her’s heart was a stone in his chest; his spirits were broken. He had lost his love, his countryman, and his fortune all in one day. Aimlessly he wandered from the City into a deep forest that bordered it to the east.

Many days and nights Ket’her roamed the forest, not knowing or caring where he was. He lapped water from the streams like an animal, and ate berries and pig nuts. His clothes hung more and more loosely about him, which thankfully made them easier to wrap around him each night, as he slept in the open air. After a time, Ket’her looked more like a madman escaped from an asylum then a young merchant, teacher, and teller of tales.

The day came when Ket’her could go on no longer; he resolved to lie down in the spot where he was and die. Bitterly he reached down into his bag; all that was left there was the icon of the Virgin that his mother had tended so lovingly. Placing his soul in her hands, Ket’her hugged the icon to his chest, lay down among the pine needles and waited for death.

That was how an old monk, Theophilus the Infirmarian, found him, as he was out gathering medicinal herbs by moonlight. He hurried back to his abbey and called to his brother monks. Soon Ket’her was lying in a bed of clean straw in the abbey infirmary, the kind brother feeding him a little broth with a spoon.

Under the tender care of the monks of the Abbey of the Deep Woods, Ket’her slowly regained his strength. Brother Theophilus asked him no questions, nor did any other brother, although they often stopped to look in on him.

One morning, after lauds had been sung, the Abbot of the monastery came to visit Ket’her. “Brother,” he said, “we know nothing at all about you and need to know nothing. Clearly you are a man of sorrows, but each man here has his own story, which is the past. Here, in the Abbey, we recognize the vanity of worldly things. Each of us has begun life anew within these walls, a life dedicated to simple brotherhood and prayer to our patroness, Our Lady of the Deep Woods.”
At this the Abbot pulled from his great sleeve the icon that Ket’her knew so well.

“This was found with you in the forest; your arms were wrapped so tightly around it that we could hardly relax them. It would seem that you, too, love the Virgin as we do. What say you, brother? Will you turn away from the world that has treated you so harshly, and join us here in our peaceful forest, under the protection of the Virgin?”

Ket’her was moved to tears, both at his own sorrows and the Abbot’s embrace. Readily he said yes, and that very day donned the chestnut-brown habit of a novice, under the name “Brother Found.” As was the custom, he was given a mentor from among the older monks, from whom he would learn the monastic life. Ket’her was very glad when the Abbot himself took him as his pupil and servant.

Another year passed. Ket’her easily joined the life of the monastery, praying at intervals during the day, chopping wood in the forest to sell to the villagers nearby, keeping times of quiet reflection, and serving his master, the Abbot Dominus.

The Abbey of Our Lady of the Deep Woods stood within the far end of the forest; people would venture in to buy wood from the monks (their wood was rumored to burn sweetly, with a slight scent of incense.) Often they would seek advice and solace from the holy brothers. Ket’her’s master, Abbot Dominus, was especially known as a confessor and advisor. When a troubled man would come to the Abbot’s cell, Ket’her would admit him, then scurry away, leaving confessor and penitent their privacy.

Still, Ket’her could not help but hear some of what was said in the adjoining cell; he especially heard his master’s booming voice as he exhorted his listener with great eloquence, sound advice, and quotations from learned books. The penitent always seemed to depart edified.

In the evenings, after Vespers, Abbot Dominus would sit and instruct his novice. Many and deep were the mysteries of this faith, its philosophers, saints and doctrines. Dominus was a dramatic teacher, and the young Brother Found was enthralled.

“This at last is the life I have been seeking,” Ket’her would think to himself as he slipped off to sleep on his cot. “Never have I heard such wisdom and holiness; its depths are fathomless. Religion is the one, true bag without any bottom. If I live a thousand years, I shall never exhaust all the facets of faith . . .”

One day, Abbot Dominus entered into a period of retreat for forty days and nights, as was the custom of abbots in his order. He entered a hermitage on the far side of the monastery grounds and saw no one for all that time. Ket’her was left on his own.

It was only the second day of the Abbot’s retreat when a knock came on the door of his cell, which Ket’her was cleaning. He opened the door and saw a man in a turban much like those he himself had worn in his own home, although the star dangling from his neck marked him as a member of a minority people. He greeted the man in his own language, and the visitor, who had seemed very downcast, immediately looked up, expectantly.

The stranger asked for the Abbot Dominus, but Ket’her told him of his forty-day retreat. The man looked grief-stricken. “I have traveled from our homeland, a great journey as you know, over mountains, through the Great City, across this forest, to seek out the advice of this holy man. I do not even know what faith he professes, only that everywhere men speak of his sage counsel. And now you tell me that he is inaccessible?”

The man sat on the rude bench in the abbot’s cell and put his face in his hands. In a moment, however, he looked up again.

“You,” he said to Ket’her, “you are his assistant, and you are one of my own countrymen. Could you not hear my story and help me, brother?”

Ket’her was shamefaced at the very idea of replacing his master, even for a moment. With stuttering words he explained that he would like to help, but that what the stranger asked was out of the question. Still, the penitent persisted, begging and pleading with the young novice to hear his confession. Finally he said, “If you will not do this for me, do it for your own mother. I know well the cabin in which you once dwelt. If you will help me, I swear by my life that no sabbath will pass without flowers being placed on your mother’s grave. This I will do for the rest of my days, if you will only hear my story, brother.”

This was too much for the young novice to resist. But how was he to hear the man’s confession? He knew nothing of being a confessor, the manner, the prayers . . . ?

“Wait here for a moment,” Ket’her said to his countryman. Quickly he went to his room and returned with his mother’s icon.

“Do you know who this is?” Ket’her asked.

“I do not know for certain,” answered the penitent, “but she is very beautiful. Perhaps she is the Shekinah, the spirit of God who has joined her people in exile in this world. We also call her the Sabbath Queen, the Lady of Peace.”

“Make your confession to her,” whispered Ket’her.

The man began to speak, looking deeply into the eyes of the Virgin. He spoke of his life, his triumphs and tragedies, of a son with whom he had been harsh, and who had run away, never to be found . . . Bitterly, the man wept.

When he had finished, Ket’her knew that he had no words of wisdom to impart to him. Who, after all, was Ket’her to do so? Instead he said to the man, “What is the holiest prayer in your faith?”

“The sacred ‘Shema,’ answered the penitent, “‘Hear, oh Israel, hear! The Lord your God, the Lord is One.’”

“Let us pray it slowly together,” said Ket’her. And they did so.

After that, Ket’her bent forward, gave the man the kiss of peace on his forehead, and bid him goodbye. The man kissed the icon and went on his way.

Two days later, another knock came to the door of the abbot’s cell. Here was another man, clearly a foreigner with cocoa-colored skin and large brown eyes.

“I am sorry, brother,” said Ket’her, but Abbot Dominus is on retreat for thirty-six more days.”

“It is not the Abbot that I seek, honored sir,” answered the man. “I have heard tell as I journeyed through the forest of a young monk who lifted the cares of the troubled without words, but with a beautiful picture and a kiss of peace. Are you that monk?”

Ket’her explained that he was only a novice who had once sought to help a countryman – one time and one time only.

But the new penitent persisted. “Kind sir, I know little of your god or his ways. I have traveled from the other side of the earth, wandering heartbroken and aimless. I was engaged to a beautiful girl, the queen of my heart. But her father broke off our betrothal, to marry her to an old and wealthy man . . .”

Ket’her was beaten. He bid the man be seated, as he sought out his mother’s icon.

“Do you know who this is?” Ket’her asked the stranger.

“I do not know for certain, but she seems to me to be Rega, consort of Lord Krishna, she who brings joy into the hearts of lovers.”

“Tell your cares to her,” whispered the novice.

The young man poured out his heart, weeping all the while. Ket’her said nothing, only held the icon of the Virgin before the penitent’s eyes.
When the young man had finished, Ket’her asked him, “What is the holiest prayer in your tradition?”

“The sacred word ‘Om,’ replied the penitent. “It means ‘The Blessed Oneness of All Things.’ We repeat it, in and out, with our breathing.”
“Let us do so together,” said Ket’her.
And the two breathed deeply the mystic Om before the icon of the Virgin. Then Ket’her kissed the young man on the forehead; he in turn kissed the image before him, and left in peace.

After that, hardly a day passed that someone did not knock on the door. Some saw in the icon the Virgin Mother, others Maya Devi, the mother of the Buddha, others still Fatima of long ago, the best-loved wife of the Prophet (at this, Ket’her’s heart winced a little). Each penitent went away relieved of his burden.
Finally the day came on which the Abbot was to return from his retreat. He entered his cell and warmly greeted his student.

“So, my Brother Found,” he said, “has anything of interest happened in my absence?”

Ket’her was about to lay the entire matter at the feet of his master, when a quiet knock sounded at the door. Motioning with a smile for Ket’her to stay where he was, the Abbot opened the door. He was not surprised to see a penitent standing there, but was taken aback when he asked for Ket’her rather than himself. Puzzled, he silently pointed to his novice, and left the room.

Ket’her was chagrined, but the penitent would speak to no one but him. The little ritual commenced; the man was quite old and belonged to those people of the forest who clung still to the old gods. To him, the icon represented the Earth Mother from whom all life sprang.

After the old man had left, the Abbot, who had waited outside the door, quickly re-entered his cell. In a rush, Ket’her explained what had happened in his absence. The Abbot nodded grimly, but said nothing, except, “Return to your regular duties now, brother.”

Ket’her tried to obey his master, going back to gathering wood and reading books on the monastic life. But whenever he returned from the forest or the Abbey library, there would be one, two, sometimes an entire line of people standing at the Abbot’s door, none of whom wished to see the Abbot. For his part, Dominus neither forbade nor encouraged his student’s actions, but looked sternly at the entire scene on his way out of the door.

About ten days had passed this way. That morning, the Abbot was in another part of the Abbey, and Ket’her was cleaning the cell, when a knock came at the door. Sighing to himself, Ket’her opened it, and saw to his astonishment a woman standing alone there.

“How did you come here?” he asked, looking up and down the corridor fearfully, for women were strictly forbidden from the monastery.

“I followed a narrow path leading from a well in the forest to a small door in the Abbey wall. I entered it and saw no one — the monks are out gathering wood, I think. I wandered these halls until I found the cell with an abbot’s cross on the door. Forgive me, brother, but my needs are great. Are you the one they call Found?”

“You cannot stay here!” the flustered Ket’her pleaded. “It is forbidden!”
“Do not women also have burdens, young brother? Do we not also need to find peace?” And she turned her eyes upward toward him.

She seemed neither old nor young; her eyes were deep and luminous. There was something of his mother in her, and of Fatyma . . . A moment before, he was about to slam the door, but now her eyes had won him over. He stepped aside and she entered.

to be continued