Invert the Miracle

May drought in all its forms end

Our garden is drought tolerant but not forever and neither am I. Open, I begged the clouds. Invert the miracle. Like jugs of wine, pour

so the celebration of the wedding of sown hope and reaped beauty can continue exactly as it did back then

for six days afterwards — Love feasting, feeding, singing, dancing

reflecting Creation’s billions of years of birth pangs, death never us parting.

©Jenine Bsharah Baines 2021

“What stories empower you?” Lucy The Eggcademic (she/her) asked.

A cool prompt, I thought. Then I scribbled it on a pad of paper and promptly forgot it. I had a really weak poem to wrestle into shape.

A poem with some interesting imagery and lines but flabby, flailing, failing. This poem’s opening three lines were culled from it. (Like God culled a rib from Adam to create Eve.)

At the same time, Shakespeare’s “uncork thy lips…drink thy tidings” from As You Like It was rumbling round in my brain. An ear-worm courtesy of a rose sonnet I’d recently tackled.

Skies, uncork…skies, uncork…skies uncork. And BOOM “invert the miracle” thundered, droplets of my favorite Bible story watering my parched brain.

Jesus is at a wedding. He’s with his mama and pals. Suddenly the hosts are confronting social disaster, utter humiliation.

Typically Jewish weddings back then continued six days past the wedding day. (I love the parallel with the Genesis creation story.) But it is early days yet, and they’ve run out of wine.

Do something, says Mary.

No, Jesus replies. It’s not time yet.

Listen to your mother. Work the miracle NOW, Mary retorts.

So Jesus did. The water jugs pour endless wine.

I don’t mean to sound irreverent. Indeed, I write this in all reverence. A savior Who saves — and enjoys — a good party is my kind of savior. Forget the God of wrath. I’m embracing a God of empathy, compassion, and joy.

Drought can mean parched earth, yes. (I live in Southern California; we live with drought’s specter.) However, I also wrote this poem with spiritual drought in mind.

As a prayer to the Universe to water the thirsty souls of humanity.

Yet it wasn’t until I was preparing to edit last night’s version of this submission that I glanced at the pad near my laptop, saw Lucy’s prompt, and realized my poem was a cocktail of Biblical stories splashed with Shakespeare’s.

The Divine has a sense of humor and so does the Muse.

Here’s Lucy’s prompt if you’d like to join in:

Thank you, Lucy The Eggcademic (she/her), for a home for this poem and tale. And thank you, dearest readers, for partying with me.