Oh Lydia, Oh Lydia
Acts 16: 14-15
14 One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.”
Oh Lydia, oh, Lydia, say have you met Lydia
Oh, Lydia, the tattooed lady
~ tune sung by Groucho Marx
Maybe she wasn’t tattooed
but her fingers and palms
stained permanently
from Tyrian purple dye,
royal color of the garments
she dealt.
Perhaps her feet and legs
embellished as well,
from crushing mollusks in a vat
like grapes for wine,
ten thousand murex snails
to render a gram of dye,
More valuable than gold,
a tint so purple to seem red,
so dark and brilliant
as if sanguine,
each mollusk’s spiny shell,
a crown of thorns.
Lydia, pagan of many idols,
went on to accept
the one supreme god,
then stained and marked
by the blood of Christ
in that river near Philippi,
Baptized, she and her household
by Paul and his friends,
branded with an invisible ink
that won’t wash away,
loomed with an internal weaving
of heavenly embroidery
no needle can render.
Oh Lydia, oh, Lydia, say have you met Lydia
Oh, Lydia, the tattooed lady
Cynthia Gallaher, a Chicago-based poet, is author of four poetry collections, including Epicurean Ecstasy: More Poems About Food, Drink, Herbs and Spices, and three chapbooks, including Drenched. Her award-winning nonfiction/memoir/creativity guide is Frugal Poets’ Guide to Life: How to Live a Poetic Life, Even If You Aren’t a Poet. One of her poems will be sent on NASA’s flight to the south pole of the moon later this decade.
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