Remnants

Katie McMorris

The book of Ezekiel opens
                         with a windstorm.
That is,
            movement.

            The Lord
                        moves

a prophet
              responds

*

Vomiting could
             be seen as windstorm.

The body heaves,

                        sweat droplets
                        form
                        on the temple.

There was a year, age 22, when I couldn’t stop
             vomiting, where doctors dismissed
             my body and its movements.

No one knew
what was wrong. 

*

Sometimes     
the word

                 body

                                       feels
                          too small

*

You could also compare
           an MRI tube to a windstorm.

Loud, frantic: pick the adjective
that fits best. But you can’t move

             against the violence.

*

I want to track Ezekiel’s
                         movements

            how his body     
                                    responded
                                    to God

*

The first time I’m in an MRI tube
the technicians let me pick the music.
I say how about the classics? and I’m stuck
listening to all of “Bohemian Rhapsody”
                                     while lying motionless. 

Mama, just killed a man.

            I close my eyes and choreograph
a dance to each new song.
            A nurse’s voice
comes over the intercom

and says they have to redo the last
test. I moved a finger too much.

*

I’m no theologian.

            I’m not trained
            to interpret scripture.

                        But I have a body
             sometimes          

                        Ezekiel had
                                    a body

sometimes
it moved

*

Body comes from the Old English bodig,
meaning trunk of a man or beast.

                Katie is the diminutive form of Katherine, and
                comes from the Greek katharos, meaning pure.

Katie:     

                pure man?

                or pure beast?

*

Ezekiel’s opening vision is often
called the “throne-chariot vision.”
                Four cherubim, four faces each,
                guard God’s holiness. Terrifying.

The body falls,
                facedown in God’s
presence. It’s not

                until the Spirit
                                           physically enters
                               Ezekiel           
                that he can rise.

*

When I learn the MRI shows a lesion
on my frontal lobe, I do not rise. I
grab the carpet and curl into the fetal
position. My parents and I play telephone

roulette all afternoon: boyfriend, best
friend, pastor, weirdly spiritual aunt,
                         brother, brother, brother.

*

          body

 body

          body              

*

The Spirit lifts Ezekiel approximately ten times
during his years as a prophet. Scholars disagree
on the logistics: some think the Spirit just helps
Ezekiel stand up, a few think Ezekiel literally soars

over Babylon, and still others believe this lifting
puts Ezekiel in a trance. That it’s all in his head,
                                                   like a metaphor, or a lesion.

I don’t think it matters which is correct.
What matters is the body permitting movement.

*

My parents and I meet
with a neurologist, and
we learn four things:

1) I have a lump on my brain
            the size of a raspberry

2) the lump is an incidental finding,
            meaning: the doctor wasn’t

*

            looking for it, it shouldn’t be there                     

3) the lump cannot be classified without an invasive
            and potentially dangerous biopsy, so instead
            the doctor writes in her notes that it’s either

*

                       an asymptomatic, low-grade glioma,
                       or focal cortical dysplasia.

              Until I present symptoms consistent
              with either condition, the lump
              continues as just that: a lump

4) We still don’t know
              why I’m vomiting

*

            still

still

            still

*

glia comes from the Greek for glue
and glioma has its roots in medical
Latin, meaning glue tumor.

            I find this image soothing:                            

                                      God
                                       trying to mend
                                       a mistake.  

*

In chapter 3, God asks Ezekiel
to eat a scroll, containing “words
of lament and mourning and woe.”


            For the next seven years,
Ezekiel can only speak silence.
Ezekiel can only speak God.

*

My next two procedures are an endoscopy
and a gastric emptying test. Both involve
foreign objects entering my mouth and
                           travelling down the esophagus.

*

Scripture doesn’t say how
           the scroll moved, only
that Ezekiel ate it.

*

Gastroparesis, from the Latin for stomach paralysis,
is when the muscles in the digestive tract don’t function
             at the optimal level, slowing the digestive process.

I am diagnosed with gastroparesis shortly
after learning about my brain lesion.        

                          I have a new doctor who prescribes
                          medication, dietary changes.

*

Eventually, I stop vomiting. 

It sounds so small
when I say it like

             that, like my body
just went back to normal.
                         To a normal.                                    

*

In chapter 4, God commands Ezekiel to lie
on his side for 430 days and bear the sin
of Israel and Judah, all while still prophesying.

Scholars disagree on this, too: whether
Ezekiel lied on his side for twenty-four hours
a day or for just a few hours each day.

The scholars seem too caught up in the details.
            They forget to see the body for what it is:
                                                   a body without
                                                   motion.

*

My neurologist prescribes “serial radiographic
surveillance,” and my second MRI takes place
                                     during a thunderstorm.

I know this because the nurses stop
the procedure when the lights flicker.

*

The nurses stop the procedure
when the lights flicker.

*

I hear someone tell me to hang tight.
They don’t pull me from the tube.

*

flicker

            flicker

*

            There’s rummaging, muttering,
            and I wait,

my body waits.

*

MRI is short for magnetic resonance imaging.
I had to look that up, eventhough my body
has had eight MRIs in the last three years.

*

Sometimes    
                         I ask God

           if He could
                        take it back—    
my body

*

In chapter 10, Ezekiel has a vision
of God’s glory as a cloud
           departing
           from the temple
in Jerusalem.

                       The cloud moves,
         surrounded by
                       cherubim rising,
         wheels spinning.

Ezekiel’s seen cherubim
         before, his first vision,

         but when he sees God’s glory
departing, the violence that comes
after, Ezekiel falls. Again.

*

Some scholars believe
this cloud is symbolic. Others
suggest it’s a theophany,
           when God manifests
Himself in a tangible way.

            I don’t have an answer.
But I know it’s possible
for God to exist without
a body. To move,
                          without
                           a body.

*

By age 24, I’ve adjusted to a normal.
            Sometimes, I vomit. Sometimes,
            I need an MRI.

           My neurologist checks a little box
that says I still present no signs
of “neural distress,”
           and I keep praying

                                   something—

*

what do you call     
                                   a person

           who prays?

a pray-er?     

            a prayer?

*

Theophany combines the Greek
                          theos meaning god

 and phainein, meaning
                          bring to light

*

I’m not always sure
                          what to ask for

            if asking for a new    
                                                    body
                           is selfish

            if asking
                           for a theophany
                           is wrong

what if everything
             wrong
with me is a little
                          theophany

*

everything

*

               sometimes the only way
to accept my body
                                          is to believe
              it’s manifesting
                           God

*

lesion: theophany

vomit: theophany

body: theophany

*

Three Hebrew words used in Ezekiel come
close to our modern translation of body:
basar (בָּשָׂר), meaning flesh, gviyah (גְּוִיָּה),
meaning corpse, and nephesh (נֶפֶשׁ), meaning soul.

However,
there is no direct translation.

*

Ezekiel had a body and no
                                       perfect word
                        to describe it

            or perhaps an abundance
            of words
                        an abundance
of body      

*

At age 25, my back starts twinging,
pain starts shooting down my leg.

A new doctor suspects a bulging disc,
recommends physical therapy, says

                           most discs heal in six
                          months with physical therapy.

*

In chapter 11, Ezekiel becomes
             so distraught over God’s
                                       judgment

on Jerusalem

                         he cries:
                        Alas, Sovereign Lord!

Will you completely destroy
             the remnant of Israel?

*

The physical therapy doesn’t help,
             and six months later I’m on crutches.
My doctor orders another MRI.

*

Alas, Sovereign Lord!

             Will you
                         completely destroy  

             the remnants
             of Katie?

*

The people
                       doubt Ezekiel,
              think his words
parables, that he’s
              just making
                           everything up.

*

I have my back MRI the same
week I have my annual brain

               MRI. I hobble in
               and the nurse asks

me why I’m having two tests
in two days, then looks me up

               and down and goes:
               the hell are the crutchesfor?

*

doubt

            is inherently
            violent

against a body

*

I have no energy
             to answer the nurse,

explain how a body
             can divide attention.

*

            weary

weary

            weary

*

In chapter 25, Ezekiel
            prophesies beyond
Jerusalem

as if what     
                           he’s said
                                        already 
             wasn’t enough

             as if God’s     
                           violence
wasn’t
enough

*

The back MRI shows
what the doctor expected:

             lumbar herniated disc
             causing left leg radiculopathy.

When I see the image of my disc,
how it protrudes from my spine

             like an almost-popped balloon,
             I feel like I’m going to vomit.

Instead, I pass out. The doctor tells me
later that surgery is the best option.

*

               Hernia comes from the Latin
for rupture, and radiculopathy

               combines the Latin radix,
meaning root, with pathos,
                         meaning suffering.

                The words feel dangerous
even in your mouth.

*

Sometimes
                           placing language
                  against a body

                            is a violence.

*

hernia: theophany?

*

We never learn all the details
             of Ezekiel’s body during his
             years as a prophet.

We know he spoke much of
             violence. That he was angry.
             That he despaired.

*

The anesthesiologist wants a complete
              medical history, anything that might
              complicate my surgery.

I tell her about my stomach, my brain,
               and she says the anesthesia
may cause me to vomit.

               My body knows this.

*

In chapter 33, God unmutes
Ezekiel after Jerusalem’s fall.

                The first words Ezekiel spoke?


               

*

It takes months after my surgery
              to return to a normal.
              The truth is, it’s never a normal. 

There’s new pain,
                         new ways to discover
                         new pain.

The truth is
                         it’s still a body.

*

In chapter 43, God’s glory
                          returns
to the temple.

            Some scholars think
                          it’s the same cloud
                          as before,
             another theophany.

Again,
             Ezekiel falls. Literally.

             And again, the Spirit
                           lifts him,

Ezekiel’s body witnessing     
              God’s glory, after
              all this.

*

I’ve scheduled another MRI,
                         more follow-up visits
               with different doctors.

Sometimes my back still hurts,
                I wake up with pain
                          in my leg. I’m told this
is a normal.

*

The book of Ezekiel ends
                with a division of land
                among the twelve tribes,

                the final verses
documenting the gate that surrounds
a new sanctuary city.

                           There’s
                 no violence

* 

It would be too easy to end
                 this poem here, to say

my body, too, will one day
                 witness God’s glory.

That’s not what
                 this poem was about.

*

                              I try falling facedown
to see
                 if the Spirit
                 will lift me.

                               It doesn’t.

*

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