The Saint Plays: Polio Comes From the Moon (Bernadette); and: Dashboard; and: Una Carrona

The SaintPlays Erik Ehn Polio Comes From the Moon (Bernadette) (Bernadettegatherssticks by the river Mary Mother of God appearsbehind her.) MARY: Bernadette? (Bernadettelooks up. Mary sings: "Scrape the Earth.') Interrogate the landscape Reveal, reveal me Take my colors from the snow and sky Stars from the sky Take my soul from the earth My girl, reveal me I will whisper secrets of Immaculate Conception And the Virgin Birth But first Scrape the Earth Scrape the Earth Scrape the Earth See what your Mother Mary brings In the middle of winter life springs I bring a spring Scrape the earth (Bernadettedoes. A springflows.) 85 BERNADETTE: A spring! (Mary exits. Bernadette's mother andfive sisters enter) MOTHER: Bring her back. ODILE: She says she has another mother now. MOTHER: I'm her mother, Odile, and yours too. She's been out there long enough. And she's lost her mind. Bring her back. (Odile and the sisters set out, singing: "What the River Gave.") SISTERS: The sixth sister missed her mother's cry to come home She always gleaned the shore for what the river gave Five sisters missed her and they searched her in the eddy's foam The noon sun comes and the water starts to rave What the river gave Windfall kindling A girl up to the cave Mother Mary's darling Bernadette rests on her knees, breathes shallowly Listening carefuly on the banks of the Gave A girl of fourteen speaking low and naturally Bernadette's guest on Masabielle (The sisters reach Bernadette.) BERNADETTE: Why are you so sad, Odile? ODILE: I don't see Mary. BERNADETTE: I do. ODILE: I don't. Some people believe you. They say there have been cures. BERNADETTE: There have been. ODLIE: When will you come home? BERNADETTE: Why are you so sad? (Odile returns to her sisters and tries to comfort them. They sing: "Where Our Sister Goes All Knowledge Ends.") ODILE: Where our sister goes all knowledge ends And school will no more serve her 86 Suspended in the shattered rock In an aureole of water The flashing of the secret sign I believe she sees her Bernadette is not the same Eighteen visions later OTHER SISTERS: Odile we won't go home Won't go home, go home without her Odile save her, bring her home We don't believe she sees her ODILE: I looked in her eyes. What comes to Lourdes comes through her. What she says is true. OTHER SISTERS: Then we should stay with her. ODILE: We will. She has visions but they won't make her happy. They will tap her out. She will have eighteen visions. (Mary enters and sings "18 Visions" to Bernadette.) MARY: First there are signs The first sign is a concept First you conceive Then there are signs in the world The second sign is a baby In this you believe Then there are actions Childhood, more Conditions of being The many figures And forms taken on in this world Ways to know knowing These are the 18 visions the 18 visions of heaven You broach 17 crises 17 visions collapse and reform materially Until matter is crucified 87 17 concepts exhaust themselves In matter's torture My son died The visions exhaust the world And torture the world towards heaven No matter what it takes I do not promise to make you happy In this world, but in the next Where vision 18 wakes ODILE: What comes to Lourdes comes through her, but what leaves through Lourdes leaves through me. I learned my place, looking at her, and had mynj visions. First, our sister will be dead at age thirty six, in a town we've never been to. Meanwhile, in Korea, a girl is being eaten by the moon. Late in the next century A girl comes here from Asia The moon is eating both her legs In the mountains of Korea She will leave Lourdes as she came. I do not know what this means yet. (Lianne enters in awheelchairandsings: "PolioComes From the Moon.') LIANNE: Polio comes from the moon On grey-green bee wings Settling on red petals A pollen unseen Through limitless space A...