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Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree. - Ezra Pound 1885-1972

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	Mary Magdalene

              I

As soon as night descends, we meet.
Remorse my  memories releases.
The demons of the past compete,
And draw and tear my heart to pieces,
Sin, vice and madness and deceit,
When I was slave of men's caprices
And when  my dwelling was the street.

The deathly silence is not far;
A few more moments  only matter,
Which the Inevitable bar.
But at the edge, before they scatter,
In front of Thee my life I shatter,
As though an alabaster jar.

O what might not have been my fate
By now, my Teacher and my Saviour,
Did not eternity await
Me at the table, as a late
New  victim of my past behaviour!

But what can sin now mean to me,
And death, and hell, and sulphur burning,
When, like a graft onto a tree,
I have-for everyone to see-
Grown  into being part of Thee
In my immeasurable yearning?

When  pressed against my knees I place
Thy precious feet, and weep, despairing,
Perhaps I'm learning to embrace
The cross's rough four-sided face;
And, fainting, all my being sways
Towards  Thee, Thy burial preparing.

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