The Waters of Truth A Life Story
The Waters of Truth A Life Story
C. Anne Engert
Penumbra Press
Series 4
This book is funded by the Instructionally Related Activities Grant of California State University, Stanislaus.
California State University, Stanislaus
Penumbra Literary and Art Journal
1 University Cr. Turlock, CA 95382
Cover design by Kristina Solomita
Edited by Editor-in-Chief Martina Bekasha and staff members Nix Carbone-Deep, Monica Garnica, Tayler Harrison, Nathalie Hernandez, Sarah Hernandez, Soleil Jones, Mike Long, Marcio Maragol, Emily Pena, and Jeremiah Washington
Copyright © 2024 by C. Anne Engert Penumbra Press, 2024.
Penumbra Press is an extension of Penumbra and Penumbra Online. For more information, see our website at www.penumbraonline.com.
ISBN : 979-8-3507-4128-5
The Penumbra Press Selection Process
For the fourth year in a row, our team has been fortunate enough to receive a plethora of compelling, captivating, and carefully crafted works. Rather than coming to a quick and unanimous decision, we had many exciting contenders for publication. The viability and printability of these submissions cannot be understated. The selection process process is one of the most exciting aspects about Penumbra, and we are thankful to have had such amazing content made available to us. The poet we selected is a true star of their craft and their poems have earned the respect and admiration of our staff. We are delighted to present their work in the third edition of Penumbra Press.
In addition to being thorough in our selection, we at Penumbra Press also wanted to be sure to curate a beautiful cover that would convey the powerful images and emotions our chapbook author evokes. After considerable time and careful consideration, we selected Kristina Solomita, an art student at our university Stanislaus State, to create Engert’s cover. We felt that the message of the author was only highlighted by the artist’s creation and hope to show a blend of both. We hope you agree as you read C. Anne Engert’s.
The Trip Untaken
I once sat in a fairground ride
Where boats went round, set side-by-side, And wheel-like bound fast to a hub— Their river just a standing tub.
Its waters flowed on in their wake, All following this endless strait.
We children laughed as round we sailed, While water through our fingers trailed.
A painted mural circled all, And showed us charming ports-of-call.
As past our boats the pictures slipped, We lived in our imagined trip.
What seemed so real, it’s hardly fair; No one aboard went anywhere.
I. Rivers
The Mississippi, broad and long, Traffics surging waters strong Enough to move a nation’s loads And families in their pleasure boats. Its spring flood-silt yields bumper falls In fields of grain, but may take all One has to give, or e’en to lose, And then flows on with dark bemuse.
It may have been the one I name That snakes along remembering The hands that painted Piasa, And me who rescued baby gar From flood-filled puddles slowly drying; Still they died despite my trying.
Or perhaps a river only seen When hindsight carves its serpentine, As currents flow through hearts and minds, And thoughtless, leave us drowning, crying. They heave and spill through lives and time, And swept along, we’re left to find Some flotsam plank to cling to when We flail and fight to breathe again.
Old rivers roll on dark and slow, And from above or from below Those who scry to read meand’ring Vagaries of the river’s wand’ring May find the endings they expect Around the bend, a sandbar wreck.
II. Childhood
I grew up on rich bottomland
The river’s claim upon demand. Our home built high, meant to remain Above old springtime high-flood stains, When houses looked like ships afloat, Sad-eyed castles in rising moats. What’s left remaining after floods? A world washed dirty shades of mud, And all that’s green gone to decay In yards knee-deep where I would wade With bow waves pushed by sloshing legs, When something moves within these dregs. Was that a snake or just a stick? Perhaps a notion caught betwixt.
A mighty highway once again,
The rollin’ river seemed a friend, Where lightning bugs lit looming night, Like childhood dreams in fledgling flight. We laughed and chased those starry swarms, Oblivious of future harms. But childish joys may hide cruel stings; We pinched their lights for glowing rings.
A siren’s river melody, These lustrous waters called to me. My parents told me stay away; The river is no place to play. Its chocolate surface smoothly flows, But dangers lurk not far below. Currents swirling, muddy brown, Will pull you under, hold you down.
There’s catfish there with mouths so wide That they can fit your head inside. They’ll suck you in and eat you whole; Watch out, child, you’ll lose your soul.
But young minds balk at elders’ orders; The brightest lures shine at borders. The river’s rippling surface foamed With mysteries bidden, secrets gloamed. Its minnows silvered shallow beds, No glance behind, no cares ahead. And shyly at the water’s edge I lifted rocks from muddy dredge, And spiraled snails crawled forth to see What undiscovered worlds might be Above the veil with them below, A truth we each so sought to know. What waits for me beyond my sight When dreams I’ve yet to know arrive?
III. Wounds
Some lessons can’t be learned by talk; They’ll lie in wait or maybe stalk The ones who life beshrouds in shade, Who seek the light though be afraid, The ones who think they bask in sun, Until one day—too late to run. Remembering the warning words, Though I might wish I had not heard, I turned away the river’s course But hadn’t understood its force.
I walked the forests, found their glades; I rested under oaken shades; I stood on limbs with hand to brow, Still hoping I could figure how To tell from winding paths below Which one to trust, the way to go. Through wheel-rut tracks, mind filled with why, I searched the cloudless, futile sky. The young believe in endless days With time enough to clear such haze. But weather is a fickle beast Whose hailstones drop on budding seeds. And dreams are meant for those who sleep; When nightmares come, prepare to weep.
Now spring had passed and summer’s near, And faintly I could still just hear The lapping waves from the river wide. And then one day, I stood beside Its murky breadth, its fathoms’ deep With wringing hands from eyeless sleep.
Now barely grown, I’m left behind, My mother’s light no more to shine. The blind abyss flows on unmoved By tearful pleas to know life’s truths. And days care not for joy or pain. They drag me on though I remain Yet bleeding from this mortal wound. The balm of time’s no healing boon. It works its will; she slowly fades. I’m left with photos and a grave. And years from now her face will be A Polaroid memory. But time won’t dull the legacy Of what it seemed she left to me— Her life was done at forty-four, And so to me would be no more. Through parents’ lives we see ahead, But now that future filled with dread.
At just eighteen I broke old ties, And wed the year my mother died. New threads grew closely intertwined And woven so, I hoped I’d find In each new town, in each new home, A place I don’t feel so alone.
IV. Refraction Go east or west across this land; A river’s always close at hand, With eddies circling in the flow, Churning all that swims below. We minnows play in motley pools, And life demands we be its fools. And so I found in some bequeath A glint of sunlight down beneath. On jagged stone near the riverside A dream was caught, and so my eye. Was there a path through mists ahead That led me to this riverbed? What changes if I’d looked away From water’s sly refracting rays? They sever sure connecting lights; What’s up is down; what’s left is right. What worlds appear in a single drop— Illusions, tempting agitprop.
I could but seek from where I stand For truths interred in river sand I didn’t know what I would find ‘Til years ahead, still left behind.
V. Revelation
Now from the deep came one to speak. Its form was human, head to feet. Its name was like a god, it said. In answer to my doubt and dread, It offered me its hope and light, That every wrong would be made right. Awake! Now see the time is near; Those knowing truth need never fear.
The God-Like-Name’s beatitudes Then echoed from its multitudes. This crowd declared with one true voice, And warned me I must make my choice: The coming times we’re here to show, And tell you what you need to know. The world you see cannot be saved; Each day its ways are more depraved. The cure’s an earthly paradise; Come take the scales from o’er your eyes. When evil’s cleansed throughout the land, We’ll build it, this time not on sand. And all will know the truth the same As spoken through the God-Like-Name. Their silken oaths, their fearsome cries Urged come with us, leave worldly ties.
VI. Decisions
I’d asked of everyone I knew
How I would know what’s really true
Some said one thing, some another; Some shrugged and said why even bother.
Creation versus evolution,
Streets ablaze with revolution, Children steeped in atomic fear— Hide under desks if we should hear
The sirens of an ending world
As glowing mushroom clouds unfurled.
I don’t believe in fairy tales, In talking snakes and swallowing whales. Why would we beg for heaven’s help
When we should answer for ourselves?
Good-hearted people could prevail; Our better angels must not fail.
When will we finally come to see
True peace made a reality?
Do truth and wisdom now emerge
From some broadcasting demiurge
On color TVs with remotes?
From test-tube men in white lab coats
With cures for cancer coming soon
Or one great leap upon the moon? Does truth reside in books on sin, Or a still, small voice you find within?
From the crowd of the God-Like-Name
A stalwart righteous answer came. Their eyes grew thin; their voices rang. They spoke their truths as one again:
Your heart’s deceitful, not to trust; Look to heaven, not fallen dust. In every soul, the lies run deep. If you want life, our words you’ll keep Within your heart and always fear To speak untruths—for we are near. The sins of others long time lain Had left my soul forever stained, And I must bear unending guilt For blood that I had never spilled. Now once I’d heard their god-like news, I can’t go back exploring views And weighing each against my wit; They said my thoughts must all submit. A choice appeared, two futures shown, Divergent paths ahead, two roads— One broad, but to destruction wends, One narrow and whose twists forfend. This latter with its rocky steeps Would lead to life if I could keep My footing, ‘longside likened minds, Those of the God-Like-Name who climbed. To walk that cramped and narrow trail, They said that I must change or fail. I’d shed the self I’d always been, Put on, like clothes, one new again. I wondered who I’d come to be And would I recognize it’s me? Above all else, I’d do no wrong And one day feel like I belonged. Now I must give heart, mind, and soul And trust the truth, I’d be made whole.
If I’d endure until the end, I’d see the wonders heaven sends. Sin’s debt erased, corruption gone. The time is soon; a New World dawns, One filled with goodness, free from strife, Where all have Eden’s chance at life.
O, something like Utopia, A brimming cornucopia— No hunger, sickness, deathly fear As everlasting life draws near. Until that time, I must be clean From tainted ways of worldly scenes; No festive falsehoods to celebrate, Sacrificed for righteousness’ sake: No laughing child hunts hidden eggs; No candled cakes on special days; No trees made grand with dazzling light. It did not hurt as you’d think it might. Near thirty years I never strayed; My mother died on Christmas Day.
And one more thing I can’t forget, A teacher the God-Like-Name had sent— An older woman, smart and strong, To me, whose mother now was gone. And to my home, each week she came And argued truth for the God-Like-Name, And near my age, her daughter, too. They were the only friends I knew.
VII. Hope
Though young, I’d seen the misery
Of those who had much less than me, The weak, the poor, those torn of war, The ones who have, who lust for more. To heal these for eternity
Would let us see what we could be. What joys this promised truth would bring, When righteous ones unite to sing! And e’en one day, the dead would rise, Let grief-stained faces cease their cries. Like lilies blooming, children passed, Returned to parents’ arms, held fast. And from these godspeed emptied graves
A form reclaimed from time-dimmed fade— Her hair bouffant from yesteryear
As I’d last seen her on her bier, In pantsuit she’d been dressed in then— Would say to me, “Remember when I wore a ring with sapphire set?”
I’d say through tears, “I have it yet.” This hopeless, hopeful fantasy— Oh, could this truly come to be?
The God-Like-Name sent dreams in print; Good news was laced with dire laments. My haunting vision came, this scene, In weekly mailbox magazines
Of illustrations meant to move The readers’ willingness to prove Their loyalty to the God-Like-Name— This artful resurrection game. From tombstones to belov’d embrace,
Believers prayed that time make haste
To finally breach the wage of sin, From death to touch warm flesh again.
To see that day of risen souls, Where shepherds led, we’d sheep-like go, Not goat-like turn to selfish ways And never know that promised day.
VIII. Affirmation I now must choose this jewel to hold; Faith cannot be forced or bestowed, And once held dear, must be maintained, Or wane like hearts too long in pain. To lift the pall of mourning’s loss, Such truth was surely worth their cost. I answered then their grave implore, Into the depths to breathe no more The air above so choked with lies. Now New World dreams would fill my eyes. But brittle skins can’t hold new wine; The old must go ‘midst foretold signs.
IX. Work Apocalypse, unveiled, revealed, I prayed that I may be concealed From days of wrath and their portend When every sinful thought would end. Watching from their tower of print, The God-Like-Name made sure we’re sent What horrors Armageddon wrought For wicked ones who’d not be taught The righteous ways of the God-Like-Name That daily we worked to proclaim: The earth cracks open, death comes riding; Mobs with panicked eyes seek hiding. Heaven’s plagues, and cities crumbling, Quaking ground sends people tumbling. Man, woman, child, cars, bikes, and pets, Into destruction’s maw they’re sent. Terror rages and fire rains; This is the war the God-Name brings.
The God-Like-Name said we must preach And pray we’d find good hearts to reach. Their god-shed blood would cry our guilt Unless this mission we fulfilled. O warn the wicked what’s to come! Perhaps our door-knocks will save some. Each town, each street, each house we tried, Rememb’ring we were under eyes That tallied our time in that field Against what prophecy might yield. It pained me pushing our beliefs On strangers wishing we would leave. Though tested by this doorstep task,
I did what the God-Like-Name had asked. Obedience meant life they claimed, And loyalty to the God-Like-Name.
From time to time, some friends would leave, But faithful ones do not believe Apostates’ stories that defame The sacred truth, the God-Like-Name. Our congregation scorned within, Why would they turn from truth to sin? They’ve lost their faith, but claim they’re free; Now they must be as dead to me. I only want to do what’s right, To cling to truth with all my might.
X. Susurrations
The winds that swept the river’s breadth Whispered caution of the depths. Said they in their sweet airy song, What comes and goes? What’s right or wrong? A river in its bed seems tame, Its banks are but an open frame. Just know that when its waters sprawl, Their flooding forth will swallow all.
Yes, floods may have their day, I said, When they recede, not all is dead. New growth appears from fertile soil, Abundance lessens lives of toil. So soon our trials will all be done, Consuming waters yield to sun. I told these voices to be still. I’ve said I’ll do the God-Name’s will. I heard the whisp’ring breeze no more, Or was it just that I ignored?
XI. Perseverance
The years went by, I tried my best
To do their bidding, pass their tests. Their source, their books, their fountainhead— Numb in windowless halls I read. While I craved air and clear blue sky, They preached, leave us, you’ll surely die. The evil one is roving ‘round; Our adversary has been bound To earth where he now stalks his prey, Seeks lion-like to steal away Our loyalty, hope, and our lives And lead us where rebellion thrives. His clever machinations weave Treachery ‘gainst our beliefs. Though some may heed this fallen son, Guard your heart lest you be one.
I told myself this life’s the best; Don’t choose that broad road like the rest. The world outside abounds with hate, But with the God-Like-Name, I’m safe.
XII. Dissonance
More years crawled past; I languished there. We’re told we prosper, I despaired— Some truer self, so long submerged, Held in their crucible, never forged. Gloom hung thick in the air I breathed, I could not tell if I still believed. How could these visions come to be Of cleansed and blessed humanity?
Trust our way and do not pale, For we, the faithful, will not fail.
What of the rest, though they be kind?
Their sins have made them doom-aligned; The righteous live atop their graves. Billions die, our millions saved.
They said their paradise is near; But scratched, its beauty’s all veneer. They said we’d speak with one true voice; Now silence was my only choice.
The river flows on dark and slow; I thought I’d seen my dreams aglow. But all its darkling mirror held Was me alone, lost in a crowd.
XIII. Cracks
To speak and think in unity, Our doubts must be iniquity, A poison in the halls of truth— Cut off, torn out, both branch and root. To contradict the God-Like-Name Meant risking all with nothing gained. I kept the faith for family— Two sons as breath of life to me. One boy was bright and north-star true, Who took what’s given as his due, Who, asked, would carry every load, Who heard my words as wisdom told. The other full of probing thought Likewise lived what he’d been taught, And sought to understand life’s ways, As I had done in naïve days. He lisped at six through loosened tooth, “How do we know we have the truth?” I talked of faith, tried to conceal Unease his question made me feel.
And rivers kept on spilling o’er With vows and secrets on their shores. This driftwood I sent back below; Some things were not for me to know. The signs were there; the time was near. My sons, I thought, would both be here When paradise’s corner turned, Though I in falling might be spurned. The fault was mine alone I thought, Not what the God-Like-Name has taught.
Denial casts a barricade
‘Gainst gnawing knowing long delayed, For mental manacles can bind Even brightly burning minds.
Like sin itself my wavering wrong, It seemed that I had passed along. Childhood gone, my sons now grown, One has questions he won’t postpone. With troubled mind, he has to know How I defend this path I chose. I wept; I’d failed to light his way, A future free of trial and pain. While all he spoke of struck in me More seen, unseen hypocrisy.
XIV. Truth
When people leave the God-Like-Name, Inside the faith, it’s all the same. They’ve failed to keep integrity, Chose sin and immorality. They’re punished for the wrongs they’ve done, Shamed and shunned by everyone. But worse than sins of fleshly kinds Are minds that won’t stop asking why. Don’t think long on doctrinal views, Failed predictions and flip-flop truths. Don’t worry over which is right, What’s taught last year or our new light.
The God-Name knows if something’s wrong And tells us so before too long. Yes, heaven’s chariot moves fast; We must keep pace or we’ll be passed. Be ready to release the old; Embrace new truths, be ever bold. For we were told we may be saved When tribulation comes our way. But no one was assured of place; We could, we knew, lose heaven’s grace. And though we preached from door-to-door, We’re always told, we should do more. Was there a time we’d done enough
The God-Name would remember us
With saving hand when the world’s laid low, And when at last the blessings flow? Or would I be cut off the same
As those who left the God-Like-Name? So bound to fear and blame and guilt— I wouldn’t know ‘til blood was spilled.
XV. Shattered
The God-Like-Name said their truth saves, But trapped me in a Plato’s cave. They paint the world as small and dire And lit alone by their one fire. And in this glare, from great to least, Behold the image of this beast. It casts as falsehoods any views That counterpoint its own ‘good news,’ No friends but those who speak the same In reverence of the God-Like-Name.
I needed more than doubts to move Outside myself enough to prove Suspicions more than just perceptions, Nor my heart’s own cruel deceptions. Disquiet swelled within and out; I must have cried a silent shout.
We can’t plumb all the river knows When undercurrents overflow.
The waters brought to me one day A bullet list—“The Things They’ll Say.” It spoke of cults in business guise, But as I read it, all the while, Its revelations stabbed my soul For I lived in the same cramped hole: →Devote yourself to the plan you’ve learned; Your loyalty will yield what’s earned. →Listen to those above who lead; They’ll tell everything you need.
→Reject the ones who criticize, As they look on with envy-eyes; They tried and failed what you can do, They’re claiming false what we know true.
→If you feel down and your spirit’s sore, To rise, you must DO MORE, DO MORE.
Should I do more to fill demands, To search parched pools in hollow lands, To spread abroad this tinsel truth And count the hours I produce, To read a mailbox full of fear, With Armageddon creeping near, And hope just always out of reach Dangling on compliant speech?
It’s rare in life that words so fraught Will crush to fragments what’s been taught. A thunderclap shot through me then; I can’t go back to where I’ve been. I felt at once embraced, condemned, Like a mournful kiss had tolled my end.
In currents, pieces swirling free Now formed a driftwood bridge for me To walk across the river’s span And from above see where I’ve been. And clearing now, the murky depths Revealed the gears that moved my steps, Machinery of hope and dread.
Hypnotic droning talking heads
Kept preaching paradise so close, Their New World built on blood and smoke.
Apocalyptic violence, The God-Name’s judgment recompense, Fed thought-controlling synergies With treadmilled insecurities. Why did the god-like shepherds need Such levers for the sheep to heed?
Misgivings I, for years on end, Ignored for loved ones, faith, and friends, For thinking I was doing right, This sham illumination, light. This newsprint world I’d justified Was washed to pulp with flooding tide.
The guilt and fear I’d felt before Now bared the stakes that lay in store— I’d hurt my sons, I’d lose my friends, I’d see this dream-illusion’s end, A castle built from river sand Laid waste by waves upon the strand, Extinguished as a windy flick Snuffs flame atop a candlestick.
XVI. Reality
As the river flows on ever more, What seemed so bright sinks to its floor, No sunken treasure’s shining hoard, But fool’s gold I’ve tossed overboard. The wreckage of its truths in shreds, That crowd I saw in slow descent. I felt like I alone survived, Not sure I’m glad to be alive. Now cut adrift, no anchored hold, The dreams I’d had lay ashen cold.
The waters move, but I am still— Past, present, future stripped of will. When all you know evaporates, There’s left a lonely, hungry place. Beliefs of dust and truths and lies, Circle through like carrion flies— A painful, flogging spirit, too, The shame of having played the fool. Above all, in my first-born’s eyes, Would I be shunned as if I’d died? I ask myself now what is real, And will I ever learn to feel Without the fears I have to fight— What if the God-Like-Name was right?
I’m thrown in rapids, rough and cold, But others swam with surer strokes, These of the courage to inquire, Who’d also left that sinking mire. With understanding hands they reached And helped me t’ward a friendly beach.
There’s left to me who’s washed ashore That challenge that I’d known before— To make some sense as in my youth, To understand the price of truth.
I came to realize in time That I could trust my heart and mind And clear out clutter veiled with guilt, That certainty’s a fragile stilt— Straight and true in boxlike halls, But step outside, it breaks and falls, That some truths cannot be held tight, That some cast shadows, some shed light.
The son whose questions gave me leave My own to ask and then to grieve Hacked aside their binding thorns. But the God-Like-Name kept my first-born.
XVII. Reflections
Five decades hence, my hindsight charts This river-journey from its start. I see myself both young and old, A hopeful girl, a wounded soul. The wheel had turned, as it will do, Late in nineteen-seventy-two: One month married, the next bereaved, Escaped and flung from childhood’s scene. A shadow formed of anxious grief, My mother’s death, my prophecy. A future bound as hers had been Would be mine, too, a destined end. And so at last it came to me, But not the way I thought it’d be. A life I’d lived, a self I’d donned, In a single day was dead and gone.
The turning goes on as before; It cares not if I’ll bear yet more, To understand who I became With and since the God-Like-Name. Still, as their crowd more distant grew, A dream lain fallow glowed anew, Desire I’d shelved on paths I trod For claims of men who spoke like gods: To free my mind from the one-book noose, And travel wider streams of truth; To read from Descartes to Foucault And realize all I’ll never know; To hear from Chaucer, Shakespeare, Blake— And many more, I’d undertake;
To meld with wisdom of the ages Not as from some devil’s sages, But knowledge added to my own From long-passed minds to me on loan; To still respect the holy books, Not for the things that I mistook, But cries of hearts in the human fire Of our sublime and base desires.
I still seek truth, a worthy urge, But facts and truth sometimes diverge. And rare the truth that happens next From epic scenes in ancient texts. Still, golden truths therein are found, Reminding us of higher ground.
There comes to those who prophesy, Who preach ruin’s road to paradise, That end-of-days we each must meet To know if we are chaff or wheat. To those who take inspired insights And wield them as if swords of might, Who prey on grief and hope and dreams
To sell a life not what it seems: Leave utopian projection— This mirage invites infection.
Like rivers, we meander on, Wandering for what’s beyond, Tethered by memento mori, Gathering moments for our stories.
Epilogue: Ad Perpetuam Rei Memoriam
April 12, 2012
It’s said will come one day an end to time
Some crave the Last Days and Apocalypse
Or if the sun burns cold and fails to shine
The molten heart of earth turns futureless
For me this cruelest day fell like a stone
Its null-time sunder froze me in its grasp
Through cries I couldn’t hide or share or hold
My mind’s eye saw his blood glaze soft spring grass
My first-born went to work and came back lost
My boy who stayed the faith, but never shunned
TVs blared out the news of two men shot
A message on my phone blinked he was one
When suns die, mother-hearts go dark and chill
We planets round dead stars must go on—still
Grave Silence
We said no last goodbye that I knew then
They tell me time heals all, but time’s stood still
Not as a lover’s kiss you wish won’t end
But like a stagnant night when no loons trill
The moon’s bright face shines full unlike my own
With eyes gone dull a-melt as candle’s end
While others euphemize their own tombstones
I can’t say ‘passed away’ to not offend
My tongue lies dead to speak what I recall—
Engraved, now sacred in heart’s alabaster
Since you’ve become a picture on the wall
And I am left to haunt my own hereafter
In dreams I hear you say you’re never far
In timelessness we’ll find a brighter star
Author Biography
C. Anne Engert lives in small-town Central California with her husband of 52 years, their cats and chickens, and an unfulfilled longing for the country life. After leaving the group described in “The Waters of Truth,” she enrolled in a nearby university and a few years later attained a long-delayed life goal—a college degree, Master of Arts in English. C. Anne Engert has been and still is an ever-hopeful seeker of truth.
Acknowledgments
My deepest gratitude to those who had escaped the trap of unquestioned truths and mandatory unity before me, and who helped me gather the scattered pieces of myself in the aftermath.
“The Waters of Truth—A Life Story” is an autobiographical narrative poem focusing primarily upon the poet’s nearly thirty-year membership in and escape from a high-control apocalyptic religion. From the perspective of a lifetime, C. Anne Engert writes to unfold and illustrate how a person falls into such a group, as well as some of the psycho-social mechanisms that bind them there and make leaving a very difficult and personally costly process. While the experiences are set in the particulars of time, place, people, and belief, the story more broadly explores what it is like to be trapped in an ideological labyrinth, to struggle against conformity and dogma for growth and authenticity, and to awaken into renewed consciousness.
The narrative’s rhymed and rhythmic structure and its guiding ‘river’ metaphor invoke a quasi-mythical aesthetic, letting the text flow freely through the story and its inviting readers to come along for the ride.