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Monday, May 24, 2010

Confirmed?

Here we go for another ride on TFE's Poetry Bus, driven this week by Terresa
Our prompt:

Confirmation

They are so pretty in their white dresses
the boys in their suits
Their families have gone to so much trouble
Everybody is leaping around
Excited
There are cakes and firecrackers
Confirmation!
More than Baptism,
or First Communion,
Where God and Jesus were foisted upon you
In Confirmation you took them in yourself.
You said Yes. Yourself.
but
What if all that reading and studying
took you to No?
How could you, in your shy thirteen,
Say No
to your parents
and the sisters
and the priest
and to all your aunts who have been so busy dressing you and preparing the table?
You tell your first real lie.
.

14 comments:

Rachel Fox said...

A powerful choice. And brave...like it very much.
x

Barry said...

Speaks to me and my own experience quite powerfully Nancy.

Kat Mortensen said...

Agree with Rachel; brave is the word. At 13, I didn't have much of a mind of my own, so no lying then.

Niamh B said...

It's so interesting all the different results from this one, but yes this image is very evocative of communion and confirmation and I like your interpretation.

Dave King said...

Wonderfully different from any other I have read so far. I enjoyed it very much. And serious into the bargain!

The Bug said...

Wow - very powerful. I grew up Southern Baptist & we didn't have confirmation - but our baptism was pretty much the same thing. And, yes, much easier to lie than to disappoint.

Titus said...

That's such a fresh take, the "foisted upon you" line is great and I wasn't expecting the "but" at all. And the end line is, so far anyway, an absolutely unique take on the image, and yet so, so appropriate. It just works.
Bravo!

Argent said...

Ooh! Ouch! But how true!

Karen said...

Wow. You can't know how this hit home with me. At fifteen (not thirteen here in the States), my daughter told me for the first time that she just didn't buy it. We didn't force her to go through it. As she said: "Do you want me to stand up and tell a lie?" My answer, of course, was no...but it rocked me and my own certainty that I knew her. Can we ever know someone else, really?

Batteson.Ind said...

very apt poem for the time of year that's in it.. I remember this time well, I brought a donkey with the money I got, so all the mindless studying was worth it :-)
loved this! cheers!

Totalfeckineejit said...

Topical and different.Interesting and well expressed, intriguing.

Reya Mellicker said...

Wow. Incredible words and that image. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Powerful stuff here! Wow.

* said...

PS: As Poetry Bus Driver this week, I added a link to this on my post, hope you don't mind. :)

* said...

Not knowing the verdict until the last line pulled me through. Original treatment of the prompt & a very good one at that!