Donatello - 3

22 Prompt - 4th offering - with Sunita Singh

Donatello

Donatella

Was she the one on whom you played cello

The woodwind whom you

Destroyed with voodoo

And regretting, made this

sculpture of her

a gesture of true

repentance at

what you had wrought

that would get you to hell

Donatella

Donatella

Donatello?

On Donatello's Mary Magdalene - 2

Prompt 22 - Second offering - with Sunita Singh THIS IS PENITENT ME That is not Mary of Magdalene. That is Donatello himself revealing his inner state of terror where there is neither male or female but only this febrile despair at one's complicity in the sins of the world and the self-wrought suffering with the art to make it possible to delineate it The angst, the horror, the torture the grief, the endless pain!

For the daily wage workers -an elegy

Prompt 22 - Third offering - Sunita Singh's prompt, done with poetic license. The sculptor is Bruno Catalano.

WHEN THEY NO LONGER GAVE US THAT DAY ON OUR DAILY WAGES

We set out from Karnataka

to reach Maharashtra

but died on the way

in the time of the corona virus

me, my wife and daughter

Years later

they made us this memorial

and to make it look better

gave us nice shoes

and fancy bags

& my wife, a shirt and pant

The truth was much less attractive

but one thing remains intact

the way we vanished

bit by bit

till all that remained

was my daughter's feet

my wife's right side

and last of all my head

The Sea at Marine Drive

mutely watches now

the memory

of us three

who died while going back

to a hovel that we had

but were never meant to reach.

April 22 TSL Prompt Write on Donatello's Mary Magdalene

Hear my cry

Hear my cry, O Lord

Attend unto my prayer

I came from Magdala, a city a bit far

to Capernaum, where the lilies grow

By mischance, I fell into the hands of a rogue

who took my virginity, promising marriage

and then, sold me for a whore to a brothel

where I was made

to sink into the pits of all debauchery

Men came and did to me all they wanted

to, in their perverted minds

and my heart

dark grew, I cursed them

You know one such as I

feels that she is to blame for their acts

for permitting it, for some bread, and some wine

to bring forgetfulness, as to what they the next day will do to you

I have lost all

and am lost now

lost my beauty, youth, lost everything to men

They say I am possessed and oft I fly into a rage

and no one can control me

then weep like one demented

Then I become depressed and speak no word

but after a while they come and rape me again, shamefully

Lost and wretched, I tried oft to end my life

but they keep me alive for their filthy profit, vile

I heard tell of thee, Rabbi, that you are one

who accepts all

the sinner and the damned

so I have come

with nothing in my hands

to give to thee my all

with nothing but these pangs

Will you also turn away

or are you also bad?

I stand before thee, frightening

to look at, that I know

but you do not know how frightened

I am that you will go

You also will leave me

You are my last hope

They speak of me with dread

They speak of you with hate

We are well met

Don't go, reach out, touch me,

forgive me, make me feel

at least once a human

as when I was a child, again

heal me, and I will follow thee

Though all men forsake thee

I will not, I am a woman

I will be your shadow

And in it, you will gain

the strength you've never known

I know you are the one

who will become more than most

If you will take me in

I will be found, no longer lost