"The Prayer Closet"

Scene
Narrator Speaks
Character:A Changing Stories Child.
Act:Time, Location, Space, Action:
A prayer at Quiet Timely Looms,
A Dancer strolls up to the Stoop of her Birthplace.
Enters.
Searches, going toward a Quiet Room.
Encounters.
Recognizes.
Enters.
Moves ritually to the Prayer Closet.
Opens.
Enters.

Character thinks.

Narrator asks: What is contained in a quiet room?

Character thinks.
I feel a shiver.

Narrator asks: What is contained in a quiet room?

Respondent: Looking in:

I notice
That sounds of dubious inquiries are ceased
And the familiar boastful agents of doom dressed to leave.
I notice herein, Paled Resistance, and watch with detachment
As she puts aside her ferocious knotting needles,
Then tosses over the skeins of wicked thread
Into a blazing hearth.

Narrator requests:
Assess.

Respondent: Why, I am redressed!
And...

I notice.
Soft perfumed wisdom sewn into flesh,
Drapes my loose raw innards in fit comforting sameness.
My assurances hold firm.

And look.
A water blossom floats up on a serene pool of molten light
Shining from flashing colored stone lips of the hearth.
Its petal eye bursts wide open,
Lit.
And perceives
My stems,their leaves,
revived momentum, shakes.
Sheds freight from rotten selfish experiences into the hearth fire.

I notice.
A sudden expression of praise begins to pound
within my heart, in my head
Like the steady increasing gait of a seductive mare,
IN the wild.
Mare Nostrum.
Our Sea.

I notice.
Her dash across Your bed of earth strewn
with bright auburn leaves and crushed stones...
I assess.
My Prayer is a compost for Your riches.
I look again.

When a hand extends from the cloud under darkness
Beyond my enclosure.
I hear the pounding gait of the mare
Take new form and thunder.
Thunder pronouncing bathing rains.
And they wash away fear from all memories.

I speak.
Whisper the long lasting human question.
Just Believe?
And the voice that moves my tongue responds.
Yes.

In Me.
I Am.
Amen.

Narrator: What is contained in a quiet room?

Respondent: Looking in, I notice the sounds of dubious inquiries are ceased
And the familiar boastful agents of doom dressed to leave.
I notice therein, Palid Resistance, and watch with detachment as she puts aside her ferocious knotting needles,
Then tosses over the skeins of wicked thread into a blazing hearth.

I feel a shiver.
I assess.
Why, I am renewed!

                                                                                                   Eldredge

Home | Leap of Faith | The Masks | Mythic Sources | One Thousand Shapes of Theatre