ABSTRACT
She wandered in the wilderness and stubbed her feet on stone. She said: “These feet are stupid. It’s time that I went home.” But when she broached the city walls they would not let her in. They said “Your speech sounds mad to us. Your body reeks of sin.” She sat down in the dust. She wept. For forty days and nights. Her broken toes were bleeding, her skin ruddled with blight. And just when Hope was hopeless, a noise chirred in her head. A sound she’d never heard before - word-bits no one else had said. And then her broken, bleeding feet began to dance around. And as she spun with arms outflung the blood etched in the ground. The burghers on the battlements looked over and they read that writing writ in blood and dance harrowed them with dread. “Well, should we let her in?” they asked “this woman kind of thing. Could we purge those awful feet? And douse the stench of sin?” 75But as they called their quorum to talk the matter out, the object of their counsel had turned herself about. And gone back to the wilderness of tree, of bind, and stone - to forage her own footpaths through earth as yet unknown. And as she stumbled further on past rock and blasted tree, she heard a thrumm - a sprung rhythm - and thought – “that sounds like me.” And Lo. It was a crookèd hut. And a crookèd kind of crone who sat and smoked a crookèd pipe carved from a crookèd kind of bone. So she sat and passed the time there and smoked the pipe of bone. She thought “I am of the wilderness. But I am not alone.” And with that blaze of blessing - that truth as true as song - she bundled up her burdens and she skipped her way along.
