Onomastics

This poem is a cento of our own poetry.

Photo Credit: Qiao_JiaoTu and Canva

My name means nobility.

But more like the bastard in disguise.

Like a lord or lady. Like kings and queens.      

Bastard princesses

turned       bastard princes

But I am just 

a kid.

I hold no nobility,

I am simply the beginning

Adam and Eve

and Lilith

  and Me

I am godless           I am divine

The bearer of Christ.

            of sin.

Atlas may be more fitting as a name.

For what good are words,

if not a home for the weary?

Perhaps the only thing

we have in common

with the gods is 

being a priceless burden. 

The depths of questions:

Let us make pebbles from Sisyphean boulders,

we are chained where we touch.

The light casts shadows on the wall;

it is quiet.

The divine never bothered to weep.

Never bothered to wash away their sins;

There is water in my lungs.

The drowning. The baptism.

The tide is a fickle, dangerous thing.

The crest of the wave

and the peak of the tree.

The godly in the clouds

and the godly of the sea.

God is Gracious

God is Lifting

God         God               God

But God isn’t my    god.

He, she, they, left me on the side of the road

put me up for adoption.

If I pledge to myself

does that make me god?

Weep with me,

I am of the trees of the earth

of the woods and their creatures

of the fires, the ocean, the sea

the spirit of the gentle the wild the free

I am divine,

I am human,

A goddess cast in flame

A princess with no home to rule

no family to bury

I have never known a world of quiet,

a world without a hammer and nails.

An Atysian crucifixion:

Paradise eludes my touch and

Inferno eludes my being

Maybe that’s why we play pretend.

Play dragons and astronauts,

Maybe even kids

need a taste

of the stars