In praise of foolish virgins

I hate those prissy wise virgins
what they need is
something to penetrate that
aren't we clever self-righteous
shell they have built around themselves.
Always right, never late,
never a wick out of place.
Trying to upstage even the bride
Trying to pretend the bridegroom
Is after them really.
Letting him know what he is missing.
Never to know the warmth of human loving.

And they knew of course
who the messiah was
and when he would come
so they wait
outside the temple of a distant god.

Not that he helped
Are you the Messiah?
Could be - who wants to know?

But the wise virgins knew
nothing better to do
than hang around.
No life to lead
not prepared to share with a sister in need.
Keeping their oil, like their bodies, to themselves.

Not like those labelled foolish
open, expectant, longing
for the warmth of human loving.
Who got on with life
and had a life to get on with.

They would have shared
their last drop of oil with another
and taken the risk
that they would miss the messiah in the darkness
and instead find themselves.

Instead, find in the closeness,
the contact with another,
as oiled bodies meet,
and flesh joins to flesh,
that God is found
not in sterile waiting rooms outside wedding chapels of strangers
but in the warmth of human loving.
In the discovery that we are not made to be alone
but to care and share and love another.

©Peter G Ashby 2008