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Mary Magdalene: A Poem

And when the fits were on me
I wanted to abandon myself,
strike my foot on a new mountain,
sacrifice my voice.
In me, the bride led by maidens
up through the cedars
in sunlight and song
was a dark fire.
Out the narrow door, the world was gone.
Nothing is possible, love, without you
making dusk gentle and the hillside warm.
I, who lived on the husk of terror
and tore myself in my hair,
sit with you, beautiful
without fear.
Never, never filled,
now I long for what I already have.
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Glenn Hughes is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy (retired) at St. Mary’s University in Texas. He is author of numerous books, most recently From Dickinson to Dylan: Visions of Transcendence in Modernist Literature (Missouri, 2020). He is also co-editor, with Charles R. Embry, of The Eric Voegelin Reader: Politics, History, Consciousness (Missouri, 2017).

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