Lent

Repentance. Metanoia. Turning. Pirouette, some say. But that's too cute to capture the roughness of sackcloth. Or the smell of soot. Or the revolting fall of the body toward the grave. Mordecai in his humble suit, gravity pressing his body close to ashes. The violent, nauseating attention to the fact of dust. That I am come from it and return to it. Thud!

So as I wear the sign of Cain, I know I need to scream like Abel. To leave my middle class decorum, and wail. To beg, to scream, and to implore. To lament. Oh, the clarity of honest tears. I am pride, I am sloth, I am lust, I am greed, I am anger. I am unclean, I am unholy. I am dead man walking. I am scattered bones rotting in the valley. So, Please! Please! "Like the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress..." Please! Breath me!