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  • In the Green Wood
  • Eden Wales Freedman (bio)

This poem details a child's sexual assault in a forest, which the speaker compares—through the use of Biblical quotation—to Jesus's passion (torture, crucifixion, and death). Words and phrases that appear in italics are taken directly from the Bible.

Luke 23:27–31

In the green wood, the child grew,Waxed strong in spirit,With the grace of God.Lived East of Eden, in a vipers' den.Her garden was Gethsemane.

She knew it not.

Did not suspectThe serpents slithering thitherDid not predictArrest. Passion. Rapture.No. She sawAngels (She was one herself):Faces shining brightly,Lucifer's light mistook.

And so, though she had brokenNo commandmentAnd should have sufferedNo shame, she found herself untimelyPlucked.

So Eden wept, criedOut to her Guardian Angel (Guardian dear):How shall this be?Let this cup pass from me.Let it not be done to me. [End Page 124] But the Seraph departed.The devils had their way,

And darkness covered the earth.

They tore at her garments,Stripping her, so thatWild, ashamed, she turned toThem, naked, pleading.

I've not known man.

At this, they mocked her,Saluted her, whippingTheir spears against her back.Behold the maiden-child.Behold our Virgin Queen.

They struck her,Cut her, burned her,Scourged her,Spit on her. TheyGave her blows.

Then bowing her knees,They came to her.And opened with their spearsNot her side.No, not her side.

The veil of her temple tattered,Top and bottom,The earth to quake,The rocks rent.

And she cried out again,This time with silent voiceTo the rhythm of their thighs,Eloi, Eloi, lamma sabachtani?

He answered not. [End Page 125] But let the one upon herOffer himself to her,That she might put it to her mouth.

And when she drank,(For drink she must),They turned from her,Whom they had pierced.

On the devil's day,They did these things.Six, six, ninety-three.Three from nine, six, six, six,For nothing is impossible.Not even this.

Not upside down like St. Peter,Nor right side up like the Lord,But crucified,(Crucifixion!) none the less.

Suffocating, legs spread.Arms bound. Tongue-tied.Golgatha. Calvary.One on each side,And she in their midst.

And though she bowed her head,She did not give upThe ghost.Further injusticeTo eleven-year logic,For even Christ suffered to die.

Blessed are the barren,The wombs that have not yet borne,The paps that have not given suck.For if in the green wood they do these things,what shall be done in the dry? [End Page 127]

Eden Wales Freedman

Eden Wales Freedman is associate professor of English, director of diversity studies, and chair of the Department of Communication, Literature, and Arts at Mount Mercy University, where she also serves as the Dr. Thomas R. Feld Chair for Teaching Excellence. She has published articles on reading race, gender, and trauma in the works of William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Eve Sedgwick, and Lauren Slater. Her monograph, "Reading Testimony, Witnessing Trauma" (forthcoming from University Press of Mississippi), explores readerly engagement of literary trauma. ewalesfreedman@mtmercy.edu

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