The Bruises She Endured

The Bruises She Endured

After Mary showed me

the bruises she endured

when she thought God had left her

all alone, without a son,

when she thought her world had fallen

into chaos and insanity,

and all things would forever remain

separate and unloved,

after Job showed me the places in his heart

that had resisted the trials God had set before him,

after Rumi showed me the buckets

filled with water shed when Shams

was killed by students in his tribe,

this was when I knew bruises, tears and trials

are all holy.

Mary held her bruises like a mother holds a newborn babe

and listened to the Light

tell her she was nothing more than moon

depending on the sun,

nothing more than emptiness waiting for the holy spirit's love;

Mary stood with Job and Rumi

and could no longer hold to the strings

she had been taking with her all her life.

All things belong to Light and only Light

could determine what was good, complete and holy.

Like the apple on the tree

allowing God to say now you are ripe and you may fall,

Mary learned at last to let

her love for God include the sadness, the despair,

her broken heart and helplessness;

she placed her life upon God's altar

and opened up her heart to receive the Love of Light

with the fullness of surrender of the falling apple
or the moon, with the passion of an unbound kite

giving itself to the wind.

This poem will be included in Elliott Robertson's forthcoming book, Darkness and Light.