The reaching woman is there again. They say she’s the local mad woman. Every town seems to have one, the one children stop by, releasing the hands of their mothers to stand and look. Looking at her difference: voice shaking under pressure, eyes darting back and forth as if entranced, rustic brown lived-in chelsea boots, heel and toe weathered, a skirt frilled and holey swinging up and down. Her skin looks wet, lips thirsty but her hands, they look like clouds and move like climbing roses continually reaching upwards. She is standing on a box, a sign over her head with the words Let yourself be loved written in black marker. The words be loved underlined furiously with blue marks. I listen briefly to her sermon and hear her pressing:

Let yourself be loved,
Play up how worthy of it you are,
The it they write songs about,
The it that has grown folks swaying,
That which is hard and easy all at once.

Let yourself be loved,
Hang back and let it heal you from inside.
Sing loud the songs they write about it,
Recite the poems on it,
Read the books all about it,
Write that on a paper and carry it around.

And on and on, hour on hour.

I am not convinced that, in a world where grown men send youthful ones to launch projectiles, the woman insisting on love is the mad one.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Luis Morales Torres from Pexels