Bethesda
By Adesope Ogunlade
This isn't grieving. I barely think of my mother in a white soutane,
unmoving in the ruins of what once held life—what once respired or
photosynthesized. My mother, the breeze of time,
slowly becomes a ruin of the verses at her soul's lips.
Calorie burn without knowing and in quest, I ask:
What is the half-life of a decaying body? How do I say
I am evacuating the ashes in the urns I made of my brain cells?
In this poem, I hand-pick my grieves into a sack and sail
them on a paddle-finned boat. I roll the boys’ sleeves &
peel the brown gauze for God's touch—divinity for a kind.
Still, nothing. Nothing, subtle as water, thick as blood, is
as stubborn as a body that had found tenderness beyond death.
When they brought our mother's body to the sand castle,
her soul permeated through me and I went rogue
in my father's arms like a hummingbird at the far sight of nectar.
Look closely, grief is the outgrowth within the lines and stanzas;
the bones of this poem, it spreads like cancer tearing every
smithereen of goad, here,
into fillings.
Who/what will ferry this boat?
How else do you mouth frustration and not drag God through the roof of
your mouth? How do you crave salvation and not fold God's names in prayer?
My android, scorning, autocorrects 'grief’ to ‘fries’.
That is to say I crunch like crackers beneath the squashing teeth of grief
and anxiety is a small yellow plant basking in a canine-size hole.
When I say the poem is not grieving, I mean I un-do the yoke on my neck.
I become the hummingbird in my mother's soul.
I raise a lighthouse over the waters.
I mean I evoke the winds, pray the boat to oblivion.
I fill my eyes, my ears, my nose, my mouth, my hairs, my undies
with water. I sit, rest aback, below Bethesda, to see my grieves afloat,
to tarry a day the Lord washes them off their heaviness.
Adesope Ogunlade is a budding writer and a medical rehabilitation student from Nigeria. Writing is a tool he uses to gather bits of himself into a piece. His works have appeared in The Muse Journal, Stripes Magazine, OneBlackBoyLikeThat review and elsewhere.
Artwork Source: “Life’s Blood,” Anita Eralie Schley
Artist Statement: I’ve been thinking about our ongoing drought and what that means for our lives. As human beings roughly made of 60% water, not to mention the water needed to grow food and for drinking, water it is our life’s blood.
Anita Eralie Schley graduated from the University of Utah in 1996 with BFA in Studio Art. In addition to having her work in a multitude of galleries and publications, she has also taught art through continuing education classes, an Alternative high school drawing class in Box Elder County, the college setting as an alternative photography processes substitute at Salt Lake Community College and was the photography program director for CLASS Art School. Anita is both a painter and a photographer and enjoys exploring different mediums in her artwork. She has received multiple awards throughout her career including most recently: Honorable Mention 2023 for the Workshop13 exhibit RED, Award of Merit 2022 Utah Women Artists Exhibit, Best of Show 2020 Box Elder Museum Photography group exhibit. She lives in Springville, Utah with her husband. She has four adult children and recently became a grandmother for the first time.
The Turning Leaf Journal 