Lazarus

It was the amazing white, it was the way he simply

Refused to answer our questions, it was the cold pale glance

Of death upon him, the smell of death that truly

Declared his rising to us. It was no chance

Happening, as a man may fill a silence

Between two heart-beats, seem to be dead and then

Astonish us with the closeness of his presence;

This man was dead, I say it again and again.

All of our sweating bodies moved towards him

And our minds moved too, hungry for finished faith.

He would not enter our world at once with words

That we might be tempted to twist or argue with:

Cold like a white root pressed in the bowels of the earth

He looked, but also vulnerable – like birth.

--Elizabeth Jennings, ca. 1969

Blessings,