Lydia’s Song

By Laura Sweeney

(Acts 16: 13-15)

I am the merchant of purple cloth,

            washing and

                        wishing well the women─

                                    battered mad abandoned women. 

I breathe healing as I speak at the river

            to a broken sisterhood, turned

                        broken bread and poured out wine.  I am

                                    not just a dyer, an interior decorator.

My knowing is derived at the river where I

                        received a God breathed prayer. 

I sing to the river

                                                sing women to the river

I am the river herself.

                        I cast a spell as I sing to the river

a song of a child, don’t worry if

it’s not good enough for anyone else to hear

             just sing and knead and roll and press

                        my purple pleasure.

Laura Sweeney facilitates Writers for Life in central Iowa. She represented the Iowa Arts Council at the First International Teaching Artist’s Conference in Oslo, Norway. Her recent poems appear in Hawaii Pacific Review, Split Rock Review, Appalachia, Tipton Poetry Journal, Hedge Apple, Pilgrimage, Edify Fiction, and the anthologies Nuclear Impact; Beer, Wine, & Spirits; and Vanguard: Exercises for the creative writing classroom.