This Marriage - Jan Owen

[highlyeccentric]

The Well

After the angel had been
and her father's first anger was done
she left her mother wringing
a chicken's neck tight-lipped
and sank down by the courtyard vine
and felt her gorge rise up.
She had half-forgotten the light.
Here only her queasy heart
like a flapping wing
hens'-down filling the air
with a warm bird smell
and the dull weight at her core.
She leant on the trunk of the vine
hard as the sinews of her fathers
till the sickness passed
then pulled herself up
and took the two buckets—
the new one Joseph had made
and the rickety one
with the handle worn.
O n the path to the well
the fallen olives
purpled her sandals with their stain.

Straw

Joseph stayed unsure
in spite of the dream.
When the pains began she was calm
as the oxen in their stalls
who shifted and sighed and knew.
H e was afraid. This was woman's work. Somehow
he got a fire going and had some water warm.
In the end it was easier than he thought
the boy slipped into his hands
neat as a trout
and blinked at the stable's dim gold world.
H e washed and swaddled him
and put him to Mary's breast.
Then remembered the afterbirth
in the straw somewhere
and carried it out and fed the fire.
H e was washing his hands with snow
when the shepherds came
two dumbstruck men and a boy with a lamb
a gift they said for the newborn lord
wiping away all doubt
with this odd hurt—
the heavenly hosts had not appeared to him.
He bowed his head and led the strangers in.

The Blue Gown


And when the time had elapsed
and the day come
that he might go to her
she rubbed myrrh on her throat
touched cinnamon to her tongue
and hung between her breasts
a silver amulet of snakes entwined
then lit three candles on a low pine stool
and loosened the string
ofthe gown her mother stitched
against this night.
He drew aside the brocade
standing a little uncertain
a quiet stranger
who'd washed her bloodied thighs
and seen her milk well up.
She let her gown slip to a pool
in duty and gratitude she would have said.
But when he drew his clothes off awkwardly
and she saw him for the first time
quite unexpectedly she ran and knelt
and pressed her cheek to his skin
and circled him with her arms.
His hardness at her bosom and neck
was a curious creature
she could rouse and tame
now that her body was her own.
His hands like promises
were lifting her hair.

Leaves

It was bright moonlight.
In another room the boy awoke
and quietly lay and sucked his fist.
H e heard a night-bird call
the scritch of a beetle
the scrabble of a mouse.
H e could not know yet w h o he was
but watched the fig tree cast
its pattern on an inner wall
and studied the light and shadow
in his father's house.

The Pomegranate Tree

The second time
a midwife hustled the man
straight out into the yard.
He sat in the shed
with the planed wood round his feet
and the shavings' tight blond curls
till the woman's triumphant shrill.
When Mary was asleep
he took the child up in his coat
doubled against the wind
and went out to the pomegranate
heavy with open fruit
and watched the sun go down
bending his head to catch
the sure breath of this infant
mortal and his own.

Comments

[tree_and_leaf]

Lovely!