PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Thanks Patricia quite: Thanks Patricia quite literally my gratitude for your kind and fitting words. I never know if poems like this would work. They are not the easiest topics to navigate and being by matter of information and established 'lore' a rich fodder for what is termed as 'found poetry' and the like. So your most appreciated consideration of it is genuine and from the heart. To be tasteful and yet opening up what to others may be an open-shut case and giving it a form and expression from a visiting mind and generation, that brings to life and bridges between epochs and understandings. (A metered exposition might be an apt description for this, perhaps)

As winter sets in again, this: As winter sets in again, this 2022, an opportune time to meditate and imbibe from a poem such as this. And it speaks with an eloquence that is familiar to your poetic voice as it is to the heart that seeks. First to be invited to peruse the burial ground of both sweet and savage seasons past. And that image of mints which seem to be a constant companion of aging together with throat lozanges, chaptstick, and a handy bottle of lemon water. Last winter we had our first successful planting of crocuses and though they bloomed rather shyly at first there is hope that they will bloom again with renewed vigour when their time has come. Thanks for having kept this poem posted for 2 decades running.

Wow!  Your theological: Wow!  Your theological insight is sooooo profound.

Stella is gone: Stella is gone She has moved on We all must die Stella, goodbye

In such situations I remind: In such situations I remind myself of Iscariot and Peter, both imperfect in their own individual ways and yet both given patience, mercy and grace. But one gave up where the other came back and turned from his ways. And I do understand and relate deeply with that sense of shame. It is a standing reminder that it is not the Christians but the Christ that saves, else there would be no need for atoning, repentance, redemption, reconciliation, resurrection, imputation, justification and all those big and marvellous things that can only be truly understood by living faith and grace. 

Haven't gotten that request: Haven't gotten that request in all these years, but kind of looking forward to it, just wonder if they are a bit older when they ask. Oh my. What to do, then? 

Yes kind sir, that was the: Yes kind sir, that was the challenge of the subject matter, to allow for a manageable collection of information where there are so many and sometimes conflicting bits of data and to elect the ones that bring enough leeway to flex and still be in keeping with the general understanding of events which hopefully brings a thought process that could host even the opposing or incongruent views in the one poem.   Having thus said, these fanatics could be or could be likened to the parabalani who were loyal helpers that were employed by the ruling power to help with the terminally ill and dying. That fanaticism went beyond euthanasia at some point and even became a "secret" force to carry out assassinations in the interest of the security of state. A second supporting idea  to fanaticism is that having divested her of her clothing within the temple grounds whe was dismembered and her body parts were dragged/paraded around the districts of Alexandria before being brought together at a funeral pyre to purify the city of all the evils she was purported to have brought in her life's work.