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POETRY

Ambergris

definition: (/ˈæmbərɡriːs/ or /ˈæmbərɡrɪs/; Latin: ambra grisea; Old French: ambre gris)—solid waxy secretions produced in bile ducts of whales; whale vomit; possessing a marine and fecal scent; some acquire musky, sweet, balsam scent that is highly prized by perfumiers.

The endless dark, the wide blue deep. Jonah’s once bronze body is spook pale and puny, soaked through to skin and bones. He shivers. He forgets the dream that drowned him, the grace that spat him back on the shore. He does not recall the secrets of Nimh, or Ninevah. It will all come back to him slowly, unspooling in the days to come, the whirlpool terrors, the seaweed, the baleen dreams. How he tried to run from God, boarding a boat going anywhere at Jaffa’s port, and found himself in the belly of the beast. Made it back for the reckoning, became accountable, became a light on the path. We all do it: we flee for Tarshish in our minds, try to hide, outrun truth. We end up the same way, heaved ashore from the whale’s cavern, if we are lucky. Another chance to resume the tasks we are assigned. To get things right, to be transformed.

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Winter Light

Even Sunday, the city is a frenzy. All scowl and growl, eyes cast low. January’s slush and freeze fresh, slick and slippery. The banshee winds spooking shrill through skyrise corridors. Still, you are standing. Still here to count the day a blessing. This time last year, it was possible, likely even, that you would die.

Still fragile, you watch carefully for ice patches in the parking lot of St. Seraphim of Sarov Orthodox Cathedral. The church is half empty, but your heart is full of mystery as prayer fills the room. The Christmas trees and poinsettia remind you of the reason. On every wall, icon paintings of saints and intricate vines, dusty pinks and rusty reds. Ancient symbols and acronyms like ciphers. A cloud of warm frankincense. The rites here are as indecipherable to you as the Cyrillic on vellum, an unfamiliar choreography.

It is the dancing light from bouquets of beeswax candles, slender stalks bundled at either side of the altar. It is magical how it flickers against the gold leaf of Mary’s halo: Theotokos, and the elaborate inlaid gold framing the icons that are doors between the narthex and the nave. There was a time when you were outraged by such ornaments, when some people went hungry, but today you think about the woman washing Christ’s feet with rare perfumes. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have Me. Gold is a gift, like life, and beauty is profound and rare. A taste of heaven. In this space, it belongs to everyone. The whole city can step inside to pray and partake of it. This gift of life.

You do not know that in these traditions, gold symbolizes purity, the unperishable, the precious, or that it reflects the eternal light, but you feel something of it in its glow. The lowly manger, the splendor of glory, two different aspects of the same winter light.

The Divine Liturgy: men in white and gold cloaks and crosses, with candle sticks, dikirion and trikirion, glowing the unwaning light of God. Their ecstatic, mournful incantations meld with myrrh and balsam, rich and sweet as angels in the honeyed air.

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Lorette C. Luzajic reads, writes, publishes, edits, and teaches small fictions and prose poetry. Her work has been published in hundreds of journals, taught in schools and workshops including on Manitoulin Island and in Egypt, and translated into Urdu and Spanish. She was selected for Best Small Fictions 2023. She has been nominated several times each for Best Small Fictions, Best Microfictions, Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, and Best American Food Writing. She has been shortlisted for Bath Flash Fiction and The Lascaux Review awards. Her collections include The Rope Artist, The Neon Rosary, Pretty Time Machine and Winter in June. Lorette is the founding editor of The Ekphrastic Review, a journal of literature inspired by art, running for almost nine years, and the brand-new prose poetry journal, The Mackinaw. Lorette is also an award-winning mixed media artist, with collectors in more than 40 countries so far. 

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Image: Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) “Jonas sortant du ventre de la baleine”, dét. (1753) musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (Rhône, France). Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.