Missionary Madame Bovary

You are a bright comet, your spiritual progress
spectacular in esoteric terms, your face glowing
with inner conviction, your zeal for praising your
Saviour in music and song unabated, you shine
in enthusiasm for life

An enticing comet, appearing to be a convincing
case for living life on your terms until one regards
the chaos that marks your passing, the disregard
for rules and personal spaces, consideration and
respect for relations

This is the bubble universe of cosmologists and
quantum physicists, your bubble is intact, you
look at the world and tell others how wonderful
it is, though you are dependent on relations
who do not agree

Your daughter paints a dark picture from her black
perspective, your husband paints another one all-
together; yet you live together, when friends appear
you play the beautiful glittering hostess, calm and
content, in charge of your life

Living in missionary zeal and creativity; but when
alone with family you create emotional storms in
irrational irritation; you easily change tack from
one conversation to another – how strange
the ways of missionaries

After the spectacular conflagration that marked
your progress, ashes are left in your wake, you
feel utter disdain for family, they totally reject
all you represent, you followed the lead of
your missionary father

He valued honour and friends to the detriment of his
own family, you were left destitute upon his death
and created your life along the same lines, never
amassing anything, handing out your family’s
possessions to strangers

You spent everything in your missionary fantasies,
in a new take on Madame Bovary, Flaubert admit-
ted his novel was based on history…