ABSTRACT RITES & RITUALS by Andrew Nichols This Manuscript Is

ABSTRACT

RITES & RITUALS

by Andrew Nichols

This manuscript is an exploration of, and even at times, a struggling with my religious beliefs. My life is based on my faith, but such a centering does not necessarily make faith easier. In fact, I have found that faith is rarely easy, and thus the poems in this manuscript deal with the disappointments and the doubts that accompany faith as much as with its triumphs. These poems, however, cannot be parsed neatly into categories of belief and doubt as they all come out of one man’s experience with God, and some that affirm sincere belief at the beginning may progress into doubt by the end, whereas others seem skeptical only to turn a corner of realization and emerge into faith. This is not meant to be an argument for or against religion, but simply an examination of the nodes of significance within one person’s journey. RITES & RITUALS

A Thesis

Submitted to the

Faculty of Miami University

In partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

Department of English

Thomas Andrew Nichols

Miami University

Oxford, OH

2007

Advisor______David Schloss

Reader______Keith Tuma

Reader______Brian Roley

CONTENTS

1. A Familiar Place Conduit 4 The Long Way Home 7 The Pond 9 Yet No Regrets 10 For I Will Consider My Cat Winston 13 Straub Road Composition 14 Passing Through Camden 16 Everything Is Bigger 17 Discipleship Training School: Evening Session 19 Lay It Down 21 2. Parables & Contemplations Receptacle 24 See 25 Drink This Cup 27 Dawn 28 [sic] 29 Manly 30 Sing This Hallelujah 31 Your Insides are a Hard Drive 33 You Are Not Allowed to Read This Poem 35 Coming Home 37 3. Red Letters Aleph 39 Bet 40 Gimel 41 Dalet 42 He 43 Vav 44 Geshem 45 Lechem 46

RITES & RITUALS

“Sometimes I choose to forget about you. Sometimes I choose to ignore the truth.” -Cool Hand Luke, “Sideways”

A FAMILIAR PLACE

Conduit

I The desks were arranged in such neat rows and our faces in solemn waiting. We had been told that Tim Barber had been taken to the hospital, but he was so young - his oldest child just graduated, his youngest in third grade - that we all believed he was fine, that it was no big deal. And yet, as the silence stretched on, as we sat motionless in those cold laminate school desks in the Biology room waiting for Dr. Shower, who shared the same blank look, to teach, we understood. Through the endless span of stillness between the rows, cradled as the gaps between earth and heaven, a friend leaned, disturbing the delicate static of the room, to voice what I already knew, in words ringing, to this day, irreverently in my ears: “Dude, I think your pastor’s dead.”

It was a strange blending of worlds; I knew him as the man who assumed the pulpit with quiet grace, his words settling gently like dust over furniture, the way afternoon settles into evening so that you can’t say when one ends and the other begins, but everyone else knew him as the art teacher always threatening “Next time” and I believed fully that a great man was about to go unacknowledged into that good night.

II Later in the gym, the principal explained

in his stiff monotone, that Tim had died earlier that morning of a heart attack, and he opened the mic to any student or teacher who wanted to say something. I watched a parade of people acknowledge Tim’s kind, loving nature, like mourners sprinkling flowers over a burial, as the bleachers grew harder and the day grew longer, and I knew many of the students were hoping it would continue all day so that we wouldn’t have to go back to class.

But slowly there was a turning: it was not about Tim but about our own mortality, and even those whose religion was nominal, who feigned indifference for popularity’s sake, discovered sincerity in the creaking voices, as the mic passed from hand to hand, the cord writhing on the floor beneath the feet of those queued in the front like pallbearers.

One student played “Amazing Grace,” on his guitar, slow and punctuated, each chord reverberating through the gym with a mournful solitude, a hymn of longing failing on his lips, each strum widening as the pick slid across each string until they burned with waiting. How sweet the sound of voices trembling through tears; how sweet the hushed bodies bent over knees, temples resting on palms; how sweet the dull buzz of the speaker cabinets radiating behind each pale and lonely voice; how sweet the eyes turned down, spotlights searching, sweeping the deep waves for ships among the rocks;

how sweet the groups of students huddled in prayer throughout the gym, hands connected, passing current, channeled, electrified. How sweet the loss that drives the errant heart home, the storm through which a clear horizon breaks.

Forgive us father, for we know not what we do. Forgive us for needing this man’s death to come to you.

The Long Way Home

Beneath the row of pines lining Hathaway, I am driving you home. The space over the console between us we fill with our glances.

Definitions settle into place like bricks: the 7th row of the movie theatre, my hand on your leg, the way I wouldn’t tell you where we were going for dinner, my steak, your salad, peanut shells on the floor, dozen roses on the table already when we arrived, your half smile and low blood sugar, the soup they were out of, the server a friend of mine, the bill and my sloppy signature, the passenger door of my car as I held it open as you got in - all gestures, I see now, of desperation - the silence for the first fifteen minutes on the way home, the question: “how do you feel about us?” - the pause, the stutter, the hesitant dialogue - we gauge the distance

with words like feelers poking into the darkness - specifics are vague; I missed my turn twice. Your apologies for not being able to love.

As we turn onto Norris, the smell of new pavement blends with the pine. I park in your driveway; the garage light highlights the bugs on my windshield, the casualties of our relationship tonight. You get my shirt, guitar; I smell your face lotion when I kiss your forehead goodnight.

The Pond

The water, the murky opaqueness of the pond in the meadow across the road from the church, the things lurking beneath that grab our feet – as kids we pulled up muck in globs to slap on the dock, a proud, brown, pungent sound. Later we held our breath, found spaces underwater between the slats of the dock and swam through and back in the dark.

We don’t swim there anymore but remember clearly the care- free afternoons we put on our trunks, suntan lotion, and plundered the floor of that pond, our ocean.

Yet No Regrets

I was gonna ask you out awkwardly, mumble over words with my eyes on the torn up carpet of the youth building, tell you you were beautiful, tell you I wanted to be with you, tell you I liked you, tell you I’d liked you a long time.

I was gonna look in your eyes, blue like mine and say they were nice, realize I’d never noticed your eyes, blush, be self-conscious, hold your hand if you would let me, keep holding your hand, fingers threaded together, buy you a cheeseburger at Wendy’s, squeeze your ketchup into a heart shape, finish your fries for you, throw napkin wads at you.

I was gonna drive you around for $2.50 a gallon, hold your hand while I drove, sing along with the radio in my best falsetto, talk with you about nothing for hours at a coffee house, talk with you about nothing for hours at your house, talk with you about nothing for hours at my house, talk with you about nothing for hours on the phone, holding your hand while doing each of those except the last.

I was gonna tell you how I missed you, buy you flowers, buy you chocolates, eat some of your chocolates, show up at your door when you didn’t expect it, play a silly birthday song for your sister on my guitar, rent a horror movie so you would snuggle up to me, rent a chick flick to be sensitive, pretend to like the chick flick, pretend to like all chick flicks, put my arm around you, tell you again, less awkwardly, that you were beautiful, say too early that I loved you, regret

saying too early that I loved you.

I was gonna take you dancing, though it would take lessons, take you to expensive restaurants and then to dollar movies, spend long moments staring at you and wanting to kiss you, almost kiss you with a sharpness twirling in my stomach, finally kiss you.

I was gonna be a typical guy, put my foot in my mouth, say something you would misconstrue, say something that would make you think that I thought you were fat, not purposefully of course, buy more flowers and chocolates. I was not gonna eat the flowers or chocolates.

I was gonna write you a cheesy love sonnet, with lines like, “our sun will never set,” (I was never going to show it to anyone but you), wish I hadn’t written you a love sonnet, take you up Mt. Geez to watch the sun set, do cute little things that you would like, like cute little things that you would do, wonder what love was and if I loved you, make out with you, do something stupid, do something stupid, do something stupid, try to make up for those things, fall in love with you, get serious, fear commitment, tell you otherwise, start thinking about forever, fear commitment but get over it.

I was gonna buy you a nice ring with the money I didn’t have. You were gonna like the ring. I was gonna propose and we were gonna get married, perhaps in the meadow across from the church, on some late summer afternoon, you in a beautiful white dress, me in an uncomfortable tux,

despite the heat and humidity, and we were gonna walk through some heart-shaped arch with rose petals scattered across a white sheet on the ground for the first time in public. And it would have been a happily-ever-after ending. I’m sure of it.

For I Will Consider My Cat Winston

For he is sleek and black, a midnight slouching through the house, but with white feet and a white blotch below the nose (for which we almost named him Booger). He pools up on the sofa like silk dropped, a puddle of material. He stretches and ejects his claws; his gaping jaw flutes a yawn, for he can sleep like no other cat can sleep, and drool deeply, yellow eyes sliding out of place. He slithers across a lap and is absorbed by the cushions, slips through the fault line, into some deep cavern, still asleep. He is a sack of black yarn thrown over a shoulder. He is liquid lethargy. For he moves minimally. For he can melt. A hand overtakes him mid-dream and he murmurs back into consciousness, slouching, sauntering toward awake, like a cartoon steamboat cutting the water toward shore.

Straub Road Composition

“In the middle of the silence in a writer's house lies an invalid: the book being worked on.” – Richard Eder

I spring across a tune; the door creaks open with a hush of falling dust.

The whole house is taut with melody as I slide through the rooms. The kitchen opens a major key before moving through the hall into the relative minor.

I feel a ripple of strums fan through the window, its trochaic rhythm intense. I note the resonant harmony between the couch and coffee table, a chorus in two parts. The last chord rings as I exit into a verse and discover the bathroom.

The water from the faucet arpeggios softly into the basin and strikes the pleasant discord of the fourth minor, a single diminished note altering the whole tenor of the structure. Passing the living room again into the bedroom, a coda ending asleep on the bed, I remember the advice

a friend once gave me, “Easy is the new hard,” and I turn off the light.

Passing Through Camden

On this dark and empty road the reflectors glow from the guardrails as I pass and the snow falls at angles across the windshield.

Somehow, this concrete stretching into darkness lit by the red glow of cell towers, no brake lights ahead, no head lights behind, is like kneeling beside the footstool of the Almighty and asking the questions I want to ask.

This feeling of being alone on the road extends in every direction until I am sure I am the only person in the world, and the fact that the snow still falls and the trees are still bare and my legs are stiff assures me that things are happening and will continue to happen in a way I can accept.

Everything Is Bigger

From the hotel, I follow Red River Street through Austin, striding to Goodbye Sky Harbor, one step to each slab of sidewalk.

Is tomorrow just a day like all the rest?

SXSW has besieged the city; every night the bars fill up with third-rate unknown bands and their melodies spill into the street and mingle.

But it is only mid-morning, and the quiet is relevant in that I am walking alone and that you are in Ohio and I am in Texas and the static you generate in me is minimal now.

How could you know just what you did?

As I pass a boarded-up building papered with concert fliers I suddenly feel every bit of the distance I am from home.

The heat of March, the dampness of my shirt against my body; the neon glow of Sixth Street, the restaurants, bars, cafés lit with cigarette smoke and conversation.

So full of faith yet so full of doubt.

Two homeless men offer

me pot, and a delivery truck unloads a mirror which I must step around. I don’t look at my reflection because this road is resonating.

We are all such small instruments, humming with traffic, and as I step off the curb, maps expand, fill out to the edges, the grey mythical spaces becoming real as my feet fall solid on the crosswalk.

The only voice I want to hear is yours.

The DO NOT WALK sign flashes when I am halfway, and the world dangles in these headphone wires.

My hands are firmly in my pockets, the left sweaty around my iPod, as I reach Fifth Street and remember my backpack still in room 421.

You are smaller, getting smaller, but I still see you.

Fortunately, this song is sixteen minutes and fourteen seconds long.

Discipleship Training School: Evening Session

For lack of words we have looked into spaces we have only ever overlooked, witnessed corners come to life - if only for a moment - and exhale, “It is finished” in a fresh breath, the A/C kicking on and sweeping the extremities of this silent, lamplit room.

For lack of sight we have rubbed knees and elbows raw across the sanctuary carpet, sprawled prostrate in a way that hurts the nose, curled beside the chairs stacked seven high along the wall, and wedged so small between our own arms and legs we feel we might disappear.

For lack of movement we have cried in silent shakes, wet cheeks pressed to palms, red eyes staring past a hundred other bodies into the throne room backdrop as the music billows from the piano and guitars, carrying the evening yet spooling up unnoticed.

For lack of tears we have let ourselves exist simply, adrift between the physical and spiritual, a shadow of God pasted carelessly across the floor, a cardboard cutout or chalk outline marking the death

from which we have risen.

Lay It Down

Even if I stay here all night these words lack volume Even if I find myself here by accident repetition has cheapened this parking lot Even if I leave my feet behind my movement obscures the way Even if the moon is hidden under the clouds and I’m huddled under the trees hanging over the parking lot darkness illuminates doubts Even if I must contend with your silence everyone else is going to bed Even if I can’t change who I am and who you are and the shape of the space between us twilight stings this time Even if I walk counter-clockwise around the old tennis court like I have done so many times hurling words like javelins into night time moves at a speed I can’t ignore Even if I want to go to bed thought is a dwelling place Even if I am waving my arms around stupidly the wind ignites the tree line Even in the light of a church prayers feel heavy sometimes Even if I am cold and shaking and thinking about bed the sky is clear of distractions Even if I can’t look away my will obstructs my sight Even if I’ve turned a corner in my mind corners bend two ways Even if there is no one here to talk to my mouth is dry at the thought Even if I quicken my pace goodbye can’t be forgotten Even if I pass through the light of the telephone pole seven more times before going inside rain is inevitable Even if I have lost my place

the creek behind me trickles noisily over rocks Even if I am stealing glances over my shoulder your movement is beautifully subtle Even if I turn on my heel there is no better suffering Even if tomorrow is coming midnight ghosts slowly by Even if surrender were only a word and God were only a concept breath is best expended quickly Even if I crawl defeated into bed I lose the chance to exact myself

PARABLES &CONTEMPLATIONS

Receptacle maybe there is a trash can and maybe someone walking by wads something up and dumps it in, maybe it’s notes, maybe it’s a love letter, and maybe it sits there for several days while this process is repeated till it is buried beneath other notes and letters and maybe even someone’s lunch but maybe it turns out to be important, even necessary, and that someone who first dropped it in comes back for it but now it’s beneath everything else, but to that someone it’s important, that is to say, worth it and they dig till they find it and maybe, for all that, it will change someone’s life but maybe it already has

See

“If you were blind, you would have no sin, but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” – John 9:41

With the curtains pulled back I see for miles from this seat beside the window.

Polished glass pulls sunlight into patterns on the floor and I shade my eyes with my hand.

My other hand presses on the cold pane as I lean toward the fresh panorama.

It rolls into the sunrise, green and alive, and striped with light.

The shadows are long and point toward me like paint spilled on a canvas, like jagged reflections in water disturbed by a curious finger.

From the row of pines near the crest of the hill a doe emerges and canters through the delicate portrait.

The shadows settle back into place as the doe moves out of sight and I know for certain

that my eyes are open because I can’t look.

Drink This Cup

With Isaac on the altar atonement began, the ram in the thickets provided to fill Isaac’s place, the prophetic substitution.

The blood of bulls and goats cannot atone for all the Jacob wrestling in us – the blood that was drained at the base of the bronze altar, that was smeared on its corners, the bull-like horns,1 that was sprinkled seven times on the seat of mercy, that anointed priests, toe, thumb, ear.2

That blood symbolized a rising power, the fall of the knife ripping the veil of flesh.

1 cf. Exodus 27:1ff 2 cf. Leviticus 14:14

Dawn

The earth was soft, dewy and sparkling in the morning sun. My toes clenched the wetness; blades of grass pierced the in-between spaces and I walked with a resolve, noticeable, like a limp but my strides were stronger than ever before, like I was whole, like this was a new beginning, and I knew intently that I could walk stronger and more resolved yet, that I would, in fact, always walk a little stronger, a little more resolved, that that was my reason, not only to be, but to walk in the first place.

“Back off God. I want to relish my rebellion, the beautiful, the desirable denial. I want to do what I want without the guilt you create looking over my shoulder at the shrapnel of my decision and saying I told you so.”

[sic]

Manly1

I have never betrayed you with a kiss to a host of armed men after sharing your last Passover.

I have never cut off a man’s ear to defend you from an angry mob with swords and spears.

I have never denied you standing by the fire in the high priest’s courtyard, but I recognize the sound of silver clanging in the temple, have seen the tree from which Judas swung.

I am guilty of fighting what I should accept. I know how much a severed ear can bleed, and I have embraced the garden tears Peter wept bitterly.

Many are the days I have wondered at your calling, as Judas must have done as the rope cut into his neck.

Many are the days I have doubted my given name, as Peter2 must have done as his knees ground hard into the unforgiving earth.

1 Andrew – meaning: manly 2 Peter – meaning: rock

Sing This Hallelujah

Blessed are the lonely widows whose hands grow restless plucking flowers up for graves, whose skin is empty of contact.

Blessed are the orphans who inconvenienced busy parents, who understand love in terms of absence.

Blessed are the starving whose lips forget the taste of sustenance.

Blessed are the sick whose beds are open mouths, who leave their families in the hands of insurance.

Blessed are the bitter ex-husbands who feel unlovable.

Blessed are the sons of drunken fathers whose wounds are roadmaps, who empty tumblers for never measuring up.

Blessed are the lovers who walk in the shadows of affairs, whose companions are armchairs and televisions, who would give anything to remember innocence.

Blessed are those saturated with guilt, who abandoned, betrayed, neglected and insulted friends for their own gain.

Blessed are those who

will never walk, see, speak or hear, never know love, never intimacy, never escape the lot they have drawn.

Rejoice and be glad.

Your Insides are a Hard Drive

Error: prayer.god could not connect to the server. Please check the extension and try again or refresh your system registries.

Warning: the system registries have been corrupted. Registries cannot be moved or altered; you do have access to these files. They have been encoded by a satellite program. Please consult your system administrator and check your firewall settings to prevent further penetration by unwarranted third parties.

To reset system defaults, open system restore and click tools. In the drop down menu select options and click the connections tab.

Check the box that says, “Unscramble Outgoing Frequencies,” slide the notch on the Static Bar to zero, and then select an archived restore point and click restore.

If this doesn’t work, run your hard drive in safemode and locate the folder System Tools. In the folder, run the application repent.exe, followed by a system sweep with scandisc and defrag.

As a last resort, reinstall your operating system making sure to back up important files beforehand, since reformatting will wipe your drive clean.

If further problems arise, contact a technician or your vendor.

You Are Not Allowed to Read This Poem

I’m not sure what you think you’re doing. The title is very clear and you, presumably, are not the Queen of England or the Pope or even Charlton Heston. You are violating the sacred knowledge and your life will now be forfeit to the ancient Greek gods, particularly Zeus, who has not had a meal in some time. Your disturbance is of the dust of these words and quite frankly, as a result, you will die a scorching, hideous death at the hands of the mongrel hordes, a clan of angry Viking warriors, scabies, or a round-house kick from Chuck Norris. Your blood is on your own head vile perpetrator. In one week, give or take a few days, depending on the speed of the paperwork, your soul will expire in the breathless squish of sudden and unexpected death. Much pain will be required of you and your body will rot as the worms spelunk its inner depths. Your spirit will not find its way to the halls of your fathers, in whose mighty company you would have been utterly ashamed and ignored anyway, and your grave will be desecrated by strung-out teenagers with sex, booze, and nasty 80's hair metal. Your memory will not live on because you have trespassed upon the ground of ancient and forbidden lore and he who controls that lore controls, also, the book of remembrance, out of which your name will immediately be blotted with The White Out Of Eternal Condemnation, the words of which must always be capitalized. Failure to capitalize will result in a five dollar fine. All deaths are non-transferable and cannot be redeemed for cash. This offer cannot be combined with any other offer. Only one trespass per customer will be considered valid according to Civil Code 3351 paragraph 7 of the Breach of Secrecy Act of 1278. This offer does not expire but the establishment reserves the right to alter any details without notification and is not liable for any lost, stolen, or damaged property nor for any injuries sustained which do not end in death.

We are of course liable for the injuries which do end in death: that’s sort of the whole point. Reading this text constitutes a binding legal contract which cannot be ignored or nullified, except by appeal within 24 hours of the time of reading and a subsequent defense hearing in which tangible evidence must be provided that you are indeed the Queen of England, the Pope, or Charlton Heston or are considered legally blind by at least two out of every three optometrists and therefore could not have read this. This offer is void in California, Maine, Michigan, The Northwest Territory, and Guam. Employees or relatives of employees are not eligible. Please sign and date below if you have read and understand these terms and conditions.

Coming Home

A curious thing: a bee circling the lips of a flower a trace of a man a slim transparency ripe berries jellied and preserved in glass bellies a first kiss or a last as the doctor pulls out the umbilical plug

RED LETTERS

א Aleph: bull

Aleph is quick to pull a load; it spears a wound, gouges, gores, leaves a gash across the skin.

Aleph can plow a hard row, its legs churn, its shoulders roar, its hooves pound out a rhythm.

It heaves and pitches, muscles taut like knotted rope. In its blood redemption courses, and its bones are all unbroken.1 Its nerves are hot with pain. It’s not afraid of mud. It could tow away a large stone, a slab across an empty tomb, and on the third day newly bloom.

1 cf. Psalm 34:20 and John 19:36

ב Bet: house

Within these walls are many rooms, more than can be lived in. Some have never been seen, some cannot be, lacking a door.

Others have been abandoned. In one room, the artifacts of work are lined along the wall, all that is needed to dig, trim, plant, clean.

Beyond that is the dining room where a great feast is always ready, an abundance of bread and meat and the purest milk.

In the center of one room a great fireplace burns, providing heat to the whole house, and, in the middle of the house, a natural spring, the often-sought fountain of life, bleeds its nutrients into aqueducts that reach each arm of the house.

From the fountain’s coolness a garden grows brilliantly green with fruit for every season and, in an open and circular area, a mustard tree under which many birds nest in shade.1

1 Cf. Matthew 13:31-32

ג Gimel: bridge

Gimel spans the man-made ditch cutting across our path. Its stone looks sturdy, safely leading across this gorge of flesh and bones, where no smooth word, no soft cheek, no victorious strength, kind eye or honored promise can. Some inch out, toe by toe, slowly accepting its support. A few blindly run, their clopping echoing up the chasm. Inevitably, halfway, they all stop to peer over the edge and panic at the great distance. For some time, they refuse to move but eventually they continue and reach the other side, where they join the throng saying, “Oh you of little faith. Why did you doubt?”

ד Dalet: door

The door is open and the lantern lit; the light that issues out is soft, alive and licking about my ankles like mist off early morning. Like home, the smell of bread settles into me and rises.

Etched deep in the cedar doorjamb the inscription “Come” in red beckons inward, homeward, so sweetly the word is solid, piercing the ear if I turn to the left or the right,1 and the voice so familiar I hear its silence. From that word emerge lines of text that uncoil in clips and phrases, great breaths distinct and measured, connected only in their succession. The words, I can tell, are meant for me, and as they score the wood they cut into me, too, leaving beautiful scars. As I enter, the sense of arrival churns excitement, and breathes for me a breath I had forgotten.

1 cf. Isaiah 30:21

ה He: window

I call it perspective. Everything is clearer through this glass refined by fire. Like looking through stained-glass, the world is colored at every turn, and I see, as with other eyes, the way illuminated before me. My blindness cures my perception, for if I could see, this lens would blur the vivid hues, the lines of contrast between black and white, the clarity.

ו Vav: nail

Vav is sharp. It has a way of pointing out and pidgeon-holing.

Vav moves in a linear way and pushes off obstructions: wood-grain, fabric, flesh. It bites and illuminates; the face grasps a momentum, tallies messengers, recounts the mission, and resurgence dims a little, like lights falling in a church.

Vav contrives a welcome force, bears a grunt.

It is a wheel churning in deeper, pouring a hole as reaction thrusts away the ping and connection makes a breach, headlighting the way home, through the dusk of veins and tissues.

Geshem light

Forms melt into one another like silhouettes approaching shadow as our proximity to light increases.

Shapes are blurred, distinctions lost, until we resemble one another, but from the light we look more defined, our differences accented, our flaws exposed.

Revealed to this degree, we squirm, hesitate, but don’t stop because inside we want to see ourselves more clearly.

Lechem bread

A birth occurred in the house of bread – a loaf was born but the loaf could not be consumed.

We broke it, shared it, ate it, but no matter how much we ate it was never used up; there were always leftover pieces, basketsful, and it continued to smell fresh.

The smell grew until it filled the whole house and not just the house but the world, and people began knocking on our door asking for it, people from distant countries even.

Bothered, our elders tossed it out, saying it was going bad and should not be kept, but even after that I continued to find it in unexpected places whenever I looked for it and it tasted fine to me.