The Daily Poem

IN THE COURTYARD OF SILENCE

What high and holy crimes you paled

    behind these convent walls;

Those innocent novitiates,

    whose wailing midnight calls

Unheeded, took as needed coin

    to paint your lofty halls,

Their minds undone in solitude

    to hollow-headed dolls

To walk within your stealth of sin

    confessing all the galls

Of adolescent flesh and blood

    till righteousness enthralls,

Ineffable the spirit binds

    in tethered mental stalls.

May God have mercy on your soul

    you cruel collective beast

Who takes the lives of little girls

    the least of all the least

To suck their tender frames of flesh

    as morsels for your feast

Of haunted holy sacrilege

    for Mother One and priest

Who tie the barbs between their legs

    till pain and piety are greased

Together, rolled into a flame

    of demon-dusted yeast

To make your bread, your faceless host,

    till lives of death have ceased.

D. Edgar Lamp

The Daily Poem - 413

Monorhyme

Arequipa, Peru

Lat: -16.40, Long: -71.54

JOURNAL: Casa Arequipa

We spent the day walking around the city center of Arequip, Plaza de Armas, and visiting the famous Monesterio de Santa Catalina.  We took the one hour tour, and then spent another couple hours on our own.  What an awesome place, both beautiful and beastly, sacred and sad.  Our guide, a soft-spoken graceful Peruvian girl, in careful English told us about the lives of the girls in this place who came at age twelve and stayed until death.  The description of their first four years as novices was simply horrible.  Left in a single room for 22 hour a day; one hour in the chapel for mass, and one hour to walk the four sides of the Courtyard of Silence to recite the titles of the 55 paintings that surrond the courtyard.  Fifty-five, the number of beads on a rosary--ten Hail Marys to one one Our Father five times over.

Tradition dictated that the families first born daughter would marry; the second would become a nun, and third would stay home to care for the parents.  I kept thinking of my three daughters: Kim allowed to marry, Ellie sent to the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, and Stephanie kept at home as a parental caretaker.  I kept thinking of Ellie being locked away in this place.  It made my skin crawl and my spirit wither.  How could such things be done in the name of righteousness and piety?  How could such physical neglect and abuse be heaped upon these little girls in the name of Jesus Christ?  But truthfully I felt little of the spirit of Jesus, as I know it, in that place.  More than anything, it seemed an abommination, a twisted assylum, a self-inflicted holocaust of mental illness.  And yet, it was so peaceful, so beautiful in many ways.  A strange combination.  Where is the joy of the Lord?  Where is the peace that passeth understanding?  Where is the brotherly and sisterly love?  Where are the songs of praise?  Where is the easy yolk and the light burden?  Where are little children sitting on the lap of a loving Jesus?  No love could I find there, no peace and assurance, no joy, no hope, no light, no life.  I know that the Catholic faith is considered Christian, but how could I ever haveI fellowship with those who condone such barbaric practices?  I know it's a place of the past, but what of the present?  What has really changed?  Tears well in my eyes for all those little girls stolen away from life.  It makes me angry to no end.  I would rather have died than to have given my little 12-year old Ellie-Boo into the care and keeping of this monstrous place.  We ate lunch there, at a small round table in a gardened courtyard; a most delicious meal.  Unlike any meal, to be sure, ever served to a nun in this place.    

~ The Daily Poet