Joanne Durham

Parable of the Foolish Virgins Revised

“Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish.”  Matthew 25, New King James Bible
 
Ten old women steered their wooden boat out to meet the sunset. There were those among them whose bodies knew ecstasy, those who knew violation, those who felt the fine thread of love stitching together their cells. Women who had lived on the few slips of earth where they were allowed to read had taken vast journeys of the mind. Others learned from stones and rivers and the deep pain of hunger and their children’s hunger, and some learned from both. They were, then, neither ignorant nor innocent. All of them sometimes felt wisdom stir in their bones, but since none had found the path to ending cruelty in the world, none claimed to be wise. They were wise enough, though, to take turns at the helm. They had seen such transformations many times, but still they marveled at how the sun nudged the mountains into fire, painted the river tones as varied as their own skins. Some had brought provisions – bread, oranges, lanterns, sweaters stretched from wear. Others had departed hastily with only their clothing, and some had nothing left to bring. When they reached the portal to their destination, they breathed relief that no one commanded them, only you can enter, you cannot, you must bring this or that. Those with knowledge from books had prepared them for such orders, and the ones who had studied the patterns of roots of trees and the touch of sun on every leaf were confident no such command would come. They were ready though and agreed they would entwine their fingers to basket themselves, shelter one another in their arms, enter by the strength of their dimming light.

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This was first published in Litmosphere.

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Synagogue 1962  
 
Sanctuary of green linoleum floors, clang of gray metal folding chairs stacked away after every service. Drab brick building, no stained glass to softly scatter light, only a purple velvet Torah cover, heavy silver pointer. A rabbi chants ancient prayers I can’t translate but power I understand. No voices touch the present, but numbers burned into arms of men in yarmulkes, women in shawls, sear unspoken. In public school the teacher casually commands, All the Jewish children and all the Negro children raise your hands, and we do, the four of us and one of him, at least once a week the whole year. Never question the pretense for her attention, no resentment registers, wrapped so tightly in expectations gathered from otherness, not in velvet like the Torah but in a kind of scratchy burlap that nonetheless keeps me from speaking of it for decades, through Friday nights and Yom Kippurs and Succahs in the muddy grass, long after I busily collected brightly coloured Bible story stickers in a little book that looked like a passport. 
 
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This poem is from To Drink from a Wider Bowl, Evening Street Press, 2022.

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Carpool Politics 1966
 
I’m sixteen, carpooling to my summer typing job in DC with three middle-aged white men from my suburb. I live two miles outside the nation’s political centre, but my world is a tightly wound ball of wishes and worries about whether I’ll ever go out with Mitch again, who I’ll see at the neighborhood pool, and visions of myself someday as a famous author. Politics to me is nothing more than the year-long notebook on the Kennedy/Nixon election I made in fifth grade without a clue what their differences were, except Kennedy had that great Boston accent and Nixon always frowned. But I’m crammed into this echo chamber of a car with these men’s chatter -– fur show last night, Joe, furs for men too this year, but looked better on those doll-baby models (he winks at me) then they ruin it bring on the n____s even holding hands with the white girls…they ought to clean up this city, make those lazy bums get a job…and before I know it, I’m arguing with them, skinny white teenager in a sleeveless dress I’d learned to sew in Home Ec., conscious as much about racism and the economy as a baby taking her first breath out of the womb, but it’s clear to me that nobody would hang around on the sidewalk all day in pore-drenching humidity if they had anything better to do. I lose all the arguments, if losing means they assure me I’m too young to have an opinion worth listening to, but they’ve unplugged a hole in my gut, and I think for the first time that the world is a giant jigsaw puzzle and someone has hidden the picture on the cover of the box so nobody can agree on where to put the pieces, but right then and there I decide I’m not going to get as old as the car poolers without finding a better way to fit it together. 
 
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This poem is from To Drink from a Wider Bowl, Evening Street Press, 2022.

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The Beach Reopens, April 27, 2020
 
We emerge from every walkway, not sure of our footing in this liminal space. A whole month, no humans. No footprints. No forgotten flipflops, shrieking toddlers, wind-shredded umbrellas swept into the dunes. Seagulls wondered into stillness, isopods beneath smooth skin of sand scavenged undisturbed. We don’t yet conceive of two years of masked faces, how this beach will give us breath. I scoop up a scallop shell, worn and cracked, to fossilize this moment. Sand slips between my toes, silk and grit. I follow the shifting whisper of the shore, admire the trail I leave behind me, ten thousand creatures alive beneath each footprint. I can only name a few, but I keep walking, trusting the unknown to hold me. 
 
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This was first published in Kelp Ocean Anthology, 2024.

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Thanksgiving
 
The sturdy mahogany table so long I could barely see who was at the head from the children’s folding table attached discreetly under the white laced cloth. China plates with rosebuds and silverware my sister and I were tasked to polish. The youngest of my great grandmother’s seven children the same age as my father, all blended into a bond called aunts and uncles. My brain tries to run like a backwards clock, ticking off their names - Aunt Ida, Aunt Eva, Uncle Harry… There must have been cousins –Uncle Gersh and Aunt I-can’t-remember-her-name’s kids my age. Their last name was Weil, surely shortened at Ellis Island, and a wooden wheel with real spokes that turned on their mailbox. I envied them having a name with a double meaning. Maybe that’s why I loved poetry even then – if you can’t find exactly the right word, you can always work your way around the alphabet of your life and find another way to say it.  Maybe I just want names to claim them, to know the thread between them and me still holds, like the rope that holds an anchor steady, a way to pull yourself back to shore when you aren’t sure where you’re headed, but at least you know where you came from. 
 
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​Joanne Durham is the author of To Drink from a Wider Bowl, winner of the Sinclair Poetry Prize (Evening Street Press 2022) and the chapbook, On Shifting Shoals (Kelsay Books 2023). Recent awards include Third Wednesday Magazine's Annual Poetry Contest, the Mary Ruffin Poole Prize, and 2022 and 2023 Pushcart nominations. Her poetry appears in Poetry South, Poetry East, NC Literary Review, CALYX, The Ekphrastic Review, Vox Populi and many other journals and anthologies. She teaches poetry workshops in person and online. She lives on the North Carolina coast, USA, with the ocean as her backyard and muse. Visit her at https://www.joannedurham.com.
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