"Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things" - Jesus (Luke 10:41)

 In the kitchen a rusted screen
lurches in the woodframe
to swat at summer winds
while a woman slows from hauling
pans, moves pain-bedecked fingers
to her neck and eases knots.
Nerves sharpen along her spine
and her face reflects a mind
crawling with Christian thoughts;
she's made barley soup and scrubbed 
floors for the shabby ones
next door; her body beyond the time
for a skin-sighing pleasure,
her backbone never touched,
her hardened feet so cold. 
She mis-taps her desk and a pile
of essays slides off a corner,
a D student’s greeting her gaze. 

Men and many men unskilled with her
rosethornery had taught and hectored
her, naming every grievous
fault; so work filled up her hours, into
neverdending days and lonely nights.
Her work unsung but counted on.

Stricken by the counsel to be less busy, 
to sit and listen, how that could save her!

In the absence of all for which she longs -
no carpenter at hand, no Son
to tease her humming as he saws -
the many things in Martha’s mind
lie heaped and fallen like the garden
rot slicked nightward into compost.

The one enmeshed in duty grows
more inward mute, more lonely, her heart
pulse-soured and winding down  
until one night - before the Moon
is full, she ascends
the female ladder
in her turn, as is her right,
to stand at that Right Hand
herself become an old hand
at shaking off the words
of wise men never sitting at her feet.