various sources
[Here comes she, bearing her plight.]
(A man! Will his words carry sugar
as does all the rest?)
[She suffers more than she needs.
Her exclusion from the throng
is her own guilt.]
(A Jew! Why is he waiting here,
and at this hour?)
[Her heart remains open – Thank
you, Father!]
(I cannot face him. He must know
that I am an outcast. Perhaps
if I ignore him.)
[She cannot know that I am here
to bring her back into the world
of the living.]
(Maybe he will ignore me.)
“Will you give me some water?”
Posted on Poetic Asides in response to the prompt, “Whosoever __________.”
Also posted as a half-poem on Jilly’s November Casting Bricks Challenge. Feel free to run… or walk with this however you see fit (I’m not easily offended; trust me!).
Life in Portofino 
Glad you have posted to the Challenge, Charley. Well, maybe… looking at your half poem I see it is a Challenge in every sense of the word. This will require much. It needs to be printed and slipped into my pocket for many days. Good job!
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I feel my hackles rising. There’s plenty the matter with that story. I think there’s a lot ‘they’ left out of the telling. I read the entry in the Bible as well as many interpretations of it, both by theologians and by feminists and feminist theologians. The Samaritan woman’s arriving at the well at noon does not necessarily mean she’s an outcast. Perhaps she had lots to do that morning and could only go at noon. Her having had five husbands may very well refer to Samaritans having had five different religions, the sixth a philosophy they haven’t accepted yet. The way she approached, even though there was a man, and then engaged in a theological discussion tells of a woman who had self-confidence, knew how to defend herself. Her going to the town after to tell everyone what transpired is not the actions of a woman who is despised. They listened to her and went to see Jesus themselves on account of what she told them – which means she was an accepted member of the community and had authority of voice. Jesus told his disciples his hunger was sated – a hunger they knew nothing about he purportedly said. She must’ve given Jesus quite the talking to. Let’s hope it’s all it was, him being, after all, very human most of the time. 🙂 Hope this doesn’t spoil it for someone who will take you up on this.
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My issue with many theologians, orthodox-bearing through to the various rays of thought, is that they all bring filters …contemporary and otherwise… to the mix. Myself included. 🙂 I no more know the status of a woman of that time period in that culture than any of the others who have pontificated from on high — including the feminists. Too many of us (notice the “us”) tend too often to go extra-textual. And that’s surely the case with my poem! The “truth” is no one but she can know what her thoughts and reasons and motivations may have been. As for the five religions theory; I had that shared by a theologian who was a force behind the whole idea. It lacks any more documentation than the Iliad and the Odyssey… only slightly more than Hemingway’s lost manuscript.
Mine was merely one very human attempt to get into the mind of characters in a traditionally-told tale.
That said… the challenge is out there! 🙂
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Busy thinking – hope to come up with something (good).
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Or bad. It’s all good! 🙂 Peace… always!
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I may have to read a Hemingway (any one) before I feel up to an answer though. Or perhaps I’ll reread Violette Leduc.
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All reading is potentially good reading.
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… you got me thinking anyway …
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I was sort over in John 4:14… less stress!
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“sort over”?
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Fat fingered it. “sort of over”, e. g. I was over in a different section.
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Ah, phones!
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https://pviljoen.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/whosoever-drinketh-charleypetru-challenge/
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