I chose this southern journal written by Jennifer Chapel
from May 2000.
The deck on this story is how long before
the sacred water supply dries up like an old river bed,
time is ticking and we're here to give you a great story.
My mother keeps water from the Jordan River
out in a deep freeze.
She stores it in a plastic jar that once held barbecue sauce
from a legendary rib place in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
When I first saw that frozen holy water
behind a label showing up a pipe smoking cook
serving up ribs, I paused.
It made me think about the Bomb of Gilead
in the old Baptist hymn
and wonder what kind of container they keep that in?
Wincing as such an irreverent thought
I blamed my mother's choice of repository for inspiring it.
I questioned her about the propriety of keeping
water that she hoped to pour into a marble baptismal font
on her first grandchild's christening day in such a jar.
Well, I have to keep it in something that won't break,
said mother who has not a profane filament in her body.
And it's plastic.
Mother stood down by the river Jordan
on a trip to the holy land six years ago.
As she meditated on the waters that had once swirled around
the waist of John the Baptist.
She thought of taking some home
so that a minister might one day sprinkle it
on the brow of her grandchild.
When she presented her souvenir to me,
her only hope for furthering our branch of the family tree,
I was touched.
However, as I was single and very unattached
to anyone who could serve as the father
to her grandson or granddaughter,
I felt a subtle pressure familiar to many southern women.
It's akin to the intangible pull that parishioners feel
at an altar call when they're not quite ready
to step out into the aisle.
Then I wondered with alarm,
how soon would that water evaporate?
How much time do I have?
Mother proffered a solution meant to instill peace
like a river in my soul.
She would freeze it.
Sure, ice shrinks in the freezer over time
through sublimation, a process similar to evaporation
but mother brought back almost a half gallon.
It would last a while she assured me.
Perhaps having the water even bettered my chances
of meeting Mr. Right.
After all, the Jordan
has played a part in quite a few miracles.
While mother's not too worried about whether
I'll ever have need of that water,
she's still so eager to use it that she's thought it out
on occasion and shared a little with friends
for their christening celebrations.
And now, well, we're down to a scant eight ounces.
Sometime ago she poured the remainder
from a two liter bottle into that quart sized
barbecue sauce jar.
By the time I have a child to be christened
the minister's fingers may not be dripping
with the precious fluid but there might be enough
to at least moisten the baby's hairline.
Mother doesn't know that the jar full of water
makes me think more readily
of what she must have looked like
when she waded into that river
than it does of her future grandchildren
in handmade christening gowns.
I imagine the water dripping off her hair
as she came up from it.
How her face must have radiated the faith
that has sustained her
and my father and me through the years.
That faith will last quite a bit longer
than the ice in the freezer.
Regarding the diminishing water supply however,
mother says I should rest easy.
She's got an additional bottle
she took from the Sea of Galilee
It's backup, she says.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét