Guido Reni (1575-1642)-The Penitent Magdalene

A poem inspired by Michael Parkes’ picture ‘La Magdalena’ and by extension Mary Magdalene. La Magdalena is a copyrighted image but click the link at the name to see the image that inspired the poem.

The cards of destiny were stacked against me

No hearts or diamonds, only clubs and spades

The scars of my past and the demons of my present

Howl for my skull in the fish town of Magdala

Outcast. Harlot. Sinner. Prostitute. Pariah.

The names and titles I bear before the world

A lover, unloved.

A heart shattered under the weight of misdeeds, real and imagined

No longer whole, but made to be defiled

Invisible to all who might help, a face unseen and a voice unheard

In the dust-filled wilderness of my captivity

No sun or moon or stars to light my way underneath the brimstone skies

A future damned by the past which forced itself upon me and violated my soul

No way to master the rock of my shame

Liberated from the demonic debris of my desolation

From the top of the boulder of an identity I could not remove

I let the cards of destiny fly in the wind

The darkness of the night gives way to a new dawn

Death dies to make way for the fecundity of a new creation

The sinner becomes the saint. The outcast becomes the sister.

The harlot is drawn near by the friend of sinners and tax-collectors

The pariah becomes the disciple

The unloved one will see love itself die and be reborn

For no tomb can contain love

I will be the first, but not the last, to weep tears of joy for a tomb opened

The gates of Gehenna shattered and the prisoners of Hades set free

Freed from having to seek a better past I sit upon the rock of eternity

Watching the beginning of the life of the new eon

Leaving the wastelands behind, I journey towards the horizon

composed Neil White, 2013