Well it seems the response was favourable, in that at least there weren’t any riled up Anglicans on my front lawn brandishing pitchforks and torches. The dear woman who read my poem said that people did come up afterward to “whisper” how much they liked it. Ah yes, well, I can understand their reluctance to shout their praise from the rooftops. The poem, Noli me tangere, is a reimaging of the encounter between Christ and Mary Magdalene on Easter morning. It is controversial not just in it’s sensual aspects, but also in the premise that Christ’s resurrection was at the behest of the Magdalene. Now now, settle down! It’s a poem, not dogma. No one will be excommunicated, shunned, maligned, pilloried, imprisoned, tortured or burned at the stake for not believing it.
Pity the keepers of the truth cannot say the same.
