Burgi Zenhaeusern
On the desire to be innocent
“...and refuse the desire to be innocent...”
—Norman Wirzba
After Janice Redman’s artwork “Ouroboros”
the very sway of it, though!
scream turned inward
accordion
distending mouth
to fangless
maw for pain
and guilt, pushing
and shoving
heavy
held
at the heart of every
I didn’t
mean it, asking for
forgiveness—slippery path
on shaky rocks
faltering
all the way
across, sometimes
a beginning
in the longing
for full redemption
from a rap sheet
the fixation on guilt
and ignorance
the desire to be
innocent is
to be refused
deliverance
from the lone
I, extravagant
protesting
surrender
no surrender
this itself
a confession with eyes
turned inward
blindly reaching
drowning
your words in this
sighing shrilling accordion
pulled and squeezed
your voice a faint hum
at the lip of my hearing
The epigraph quotes Norman Wirzba in the interview Borrowing the Breath of God: a Conversation with Norman Wirzba with Jason Myers for EcoTheo Review (Spring, 2020). The full quote reads: “One of the things that’s central, and that comes out of a sacrificial understanding of life, is that you need to suspend the temptation to denounce others and refuse the desire to be innocent, somehow above the fray, and not involved in the pain and suffering that saturate our world.” This quote is part of a longer response.