Visitation, by Merryn Rutledge

Mosaic of the Ark of the Covenant, Basilica Germigny-Des-Prés (France) 806. Manfred Heyde, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Visitation

“When the coating of dew lifted, there on the surface of the desert was a thing delicate, powdery…‘That,’ said Moses to them, ‘is the bread Yahweh gives you to eat…This is Yahweh’s command: Fill an omer with it, and let it be kept for your descendants, to let them see the food that I fed you with in the wilderness…’”
The Jerusalem Bible, Exodus 16:14-16, 32-33

I Loire Valley, Oratory at Germigny-des-Prés

Our choirmaster, Abbé Martin, corralled us
under the dome of the apse.
Eyes followed his gaze, tilting heavenward 
to a firmament of golden mosaics.

We shuffled, restless, tipsy from surfeit of summer holiday.
Two angels welcomed us overhead, feathered wings unfolded.
Gazing into their faces, we joined the Israelites
whom we imagined gathering, amazed by 
the holy messengers reaching down to offer bread
for the journey through the hungry desert.
Bread the tribe would save to remember 
they had never been alone.

Before we sang, Father Martin told us a story.
Goudimel, who wrote the hymn, a Huguenot murdered
by Catholics. He said music sounds perpetual praise, 
inaudible only until any of God’s creatures-- 
a bird, a choir, a cricket trilling—joins the canticle.
Let us laud, Abbé prayed, and sing for reconciling.

II Later, Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire monastery

I carried his message as a chalice on to St Benoit
where we chanted with the monks, made merry
over meals of bread, wine, cheese.
I, the only one not French, not Catholic.
At a distance, here, from a glacial marriage that had cracked, 
exposing yearning. With the choir, here enfolded.
 
In the dormitory, the women--
without husbands in a nearby room--
free, telling bawdy stories
as we lay in two tidy rows of beds 
like so many naughty Madelines,
at rest in their happy orphanage.

I fingered my wedding ring, wondering,
vaguely, about the cold diamond,
searching, vaguely, for some part of myself
that was lost to me and wanted reconciling.

Merryn Rutledge

Winner of Orison Books’ 2023 Best Spiritual Literature poem prize and a Naugatuck River Review 2024 Best Narrative Poem finalist, Merryn Rutledge is widely published. Her collection Sweet Juice and Ruby-Bitter Seed is from Kelsay Books, where a second collection, To Carve a Path through Thickets will be published early in 2026. Merryn lives in eastern MA, where she teaches poetry, reviews new poetry books, sings, dances, and volunteers for social justice. Also a happy grandmother.