Today's poem is by Paula Reed Nancarrow

The Woman Who Had No Shadow
        Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 755, Redemption and Forgiveness.

Why must the correct
answer always be
Be it done to me
according to Thy will?

In the folk tale
a pastor's wife
seeks remedies
from a witch in the woods
& is given them.

Stones tossed
into a well.
Her shadow
following after.

Thereafter
no shadow.
No children.

*

In the folk tale
it takes death
and a miracle

for the pastor
to forgive his wife —
to conceive at least
of a God who might.

On the slate roof
of the parsonage
wildflowers are blooming.

At the bottom of a well
the shadows
of dead women
nurse stones.

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Copyright © 2024 Paula Reed Nancarrow All rights reserved
from Poetry South
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission