Moveable Feast

St. Sarkis Moveable Feast
by Ray Ball, PhD

In memory of Jan

During her funeral, which I could not attend,
I wondered why there are so few Moveable

Feasts. She told me once, while we were doing
something mundane, like getting frozen

yogurt at TCBY, that one of them is the day
of St. Sarkis. That Christian general who marched

to Antioch, but realized he could not serve
an emperor apostate. So he fled from the city,

running with footfalls lighter than a sprinkling
of flour in the dark of night through the lands

of the ring-headed dwarf snakes. Offered
his fealty to another, the Zoroastrian crowned

in utero. A destroyer of lands who insisted
that Sarkis submit to a trial by fire to prove

the legitimacy of his faith. When he refused,
his son was murdered before his eyes. Light

poured from his martyred bones. Bright relics
illuminated again in medieval manuscripts

decorated by monks. Footprints appearing
in flour spilled like the dust of the desert

on the kitchen floor. Before her cancer
cells multiplied and spread, in spite of trials

of burning chemical fire, she mixed the dough
for salty biscuits sixty-three days before Easter.


Ray Ball, PhD, is a history professor and Pushcart nominee. She is the author of two history books, and her creative work has recently appeared in Coffin Bell, Ellipsis Zine, Moria, and UCity Review. Ray serves as an associate editor of the literary journal Alaska Women Speak. You can find her hiking and running Alaska’s trails, researching in the Spanish and Italian archives, or on Twitter @ProfessorBall.

Image of St. Sarkis from Welcome to Armenia‘s “Captain St. Sarkis.”

(And don’t miss Ray’s found poem The quality of protecting about coconuts, people, and the Indies. – Elephants Never)

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