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The Spirit of Ubuntu
I am
because we are
Gloria Piper Roberson
The summer of 2002, I registered for my first
creative writing class at Wenatchee Valley College. I say “first”
because I have continued with these classes over the years. That
miserably hot summer I took on two new, difficult tasks: My daughter,
Jill and I tore down the decrepit fence at the back of her yard and
erected a new one and Mr. Tiffany, my creative writing professor gave a
class assignment of choosing a form poem to write: a pantoum, or a
villanelle or a sestina. The sestinas, I still hear him saying, is the
more difficult of the three. I must like difficult, otherwise why would
I be working on a fence before class for a whole week in temperatures
hovering at 105 degrees. I choose the sestina.
I quote Miriam Sagan from her book
Unbroken Line, “The sestina is a narrative poem, a poem that works
to create a narrative of its own. It is a scary form—tantalizing if
terrifying. What makes it difficult to write is that it depends upon
words, rather than lines, for its effect. It has six stanzas of six
lines and one stanza of three. This highly limits it.” She goes on to
say, “This makes the sestina exciting to write and read. To write a
sestina, you must pick six individual words. Each line of the stanza
ends with one of these unrhyming words in an intricate pattern.” She
concludes, “Note that in the final stanza, the six words are all strung
together in the same order that they originally appeared in the first
stanza.”
That summer quarter as I set fence
posts, put up stringers, and hammered cedar fencing, I decided on my six
words: soldier, upheaval, judged, crown, blood, and eyes and went to
work building a sestina I finally entitled Diadem.
In February of this year, I offered the
sestina to Julia for her consideration for our Palm Sunday story. She
liked it. I offered it to my four Ubuntu Men in Black (that is what I
call them.) They liked it and agreed to present it. I asked Denese
Sollom if she would bring her voice to the poem. She liked it. She
would.
What happened to the sestina on this
Palm Sunday is this: The Roman soldiers I wrote in, Nicholas Agrippa,
Vibius, Marcus and Titus came alive in a way they never were nor ever
could be in the restrictive poem. Dan Sollom, Glen Carlson, Bob Stoehr
and Ron Adams breathed life into these soldiers, became these Roman
soldiers. Individually their own voices developed.
Matter-of-fact Nicholas Agrippa is a Roman soldier in the strictest
sense. His job? Follow orders. He never waivers.
Titus taken by the events around him with the howling crowd, the
darkening sky and the suffering caused by his comrades and himself to
“this man” is, most of the time, beside himself with shock. Vivius, stanch Roman soldier yes, has a sensitive
side that reveals itself, causing him to vomit from what he sees and
what his commander orders of him. That Marcus is there at all is an
irritant and an inconvenience to him. Several times lately on his days
off his commander commands him to duty to deal with the upheaval “this
man” is causing. He has to do it; he does not have to like it. And, he
does not. Not one bit.
And, nowhere tucked into the poem is
that haunting, poignant voice of Denese Sollom raining down as if the
tears of the ten thousand angels Jesus could have called to save him but
didn’t. Nowhere was her musical cord painfully working its way through
the words on paper, tugging from above, lifting the cross along with the
soldiers. Nowhere.
And, nowhere in the poem does it show
that Marcus, if for but a moment when the crown lands at his feet, takes
a turn from irritant to balm “maybe, this man…”
Diadem
I am Nicholas Agrippa, a Roman soldier
not retired soon enough. There is upheaval
in Jerusalem. A rebel seized and judged.
My captain orders me to yank a crown
of thorns upon his head. Blood
spills down like wine into his eyes.
He cannot wipe the blood away from his eyes.
I follow orders like a good Roman soldier.
I tie him like a sacrificial lamb. His blood
sticks to my arms like honey. Upheaval
turns my mouth to sand. I want to take the crown
away, but I cannot. I am a soldier. This man
judged
a liar. Judged a fraud. This man judged
by his own people to be a hypocrite. His eyes
speak. I wonder
who is this man beneath the
crown.
Vibius jabs him like a roasting pig. The soldier
Marcus spits hate-slime into his face. The
upheaval
is a wild snarling dog hungry for his blood.
He stays as calm as uncorked wine. Blood
slithers down like newborn coral snakes. Judged
guilty. Titus and I heave the cross. The upheaval
cracks of thunder. I free his hands. Our eyes
collide. We lift the cross like good Roman
soldiers
and thrust it at the face beneath the crown.
He drags the cross as if it were his entrails. The
crown
spiked to his brow, his lashes knotted hard with
blood.
I lay him out. I pierce his feet and hands. I am
a soldier
but I am sick. Marcus and Titus and I hoist this
judged
one upward. The cross tips forward to fly away.
His eyes
close. He is a woman giving birth. I vomit.
Upheaval
howls like a lonely wolf until the end--His
upheaval
over. The sky rips open. The wind yanks the crown
off his head. It lands at my feet. I look up. His
eyes
close. My mind muddles. My hands hold his blood.
I did no wrong. I follow orders. This man judged.
I did nothing wrong. I am a Roman soldier.
I deal with upheaval among the people. The sight
of blood
is nothing new to me. A crown of thorns is just
that. Judged
no more than that. He died. This I swear as a
soldier.
Gloria Piper Roberson
A Sestina August 5, 2002
Spirit Seeds
The seed of a situation happened but the
writer grows the story
Gloria Piper
Roberson
The first thing I did
when I got home after Pastor Julia and I finished our conversation
regarding a story plot for our 2008 Barn Service, our fifth Barn
Service, was to study. Both physical and mental research is important
to, as well as a large part of, the writing process—even for fiction and
poetry.
Julia and I decided
we would tell about Mary and Joey, a modern day couple much the same way
Luke (2:1-20) tells about the Biblical Mary and Joseph.
In both stories, they
travel from one place to another for a particular purpose yet for a
temporary stay. In both stories, they meet with “we are filled up.” In
both stories a child is born. In both stories, we learn “that babies
rule the world.”
I researched for
states containing cities named Bethlehem and Nazareth. Google informed
me about Nazareth, Pennsylvania and Bethlehem, New Hampshire.
Place names are
magical.
Once when
Don and I were traveling on our motorbike on the back roads from
Wenatchee to Missoula, Montana, we experienced a terrible, unexpected
cloudburst. It happened fast. There was nowhere on the country road to
pull over and don our rain gear. Soon drenched to the bone we shivered
with cold. When we arrived in Missoula we pulled up to the entrance of
the Red Lion Lodge relieved at the thought of getting out of the storm,
out of our soaked clothes, and into something dry. However, we learned
it was graduation weekend for the University of Montana and the Red Lion
Lodge had no rooms available.
Don left
me standing on the terracotta flooring in the lobby to wait—I was too
drippy to stand on the carpet or sit in the chairs—while he went back
out into the deluge to ride around in hopes of finding a room. I
thought he would never return. I worried about him being in an accident
in the storm. I worried about what would happen to me if an accident
did occur. Never did the growling of the motorbike sound so good as
when I heard him return then saw him step into the foyer of the
lodge—more sopped than ever if that were possible.
“I found
a room and checked us in. It’s not as plush as the Red Lion Lodge but
all we have to do is get there. ”
Another
time, in Lake Louise, BC, Canada, as Don registered us for the last room
at the Post Hotel I stood wet, cold, and hunched under the warm air that
blew from the vent at the local Laundromat.
To this
day, my memory recalls the rooms in Missoula and Lake Louise as well as
the Laundromat vent. Yet, what stays tucked in my soul is the feelings
I experienced when I finally arrived somewhere dry, warm, and safe.
Perhaps these feelings were not too far from those of our two Mary’s.
His Spirit
sows seeds every day.
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