He Sent the Mourners Away

He Sent the Mourners Away

(“But he took her by the hand. ’Get up, child,’ he called.”) Luke 8:54)

They had been wailing outside, the
mourners
who came to grieve for the dying daughter.
Barely catching their breath before the next sob started,
the took their place along the mudbrick walls.

A stranger approached, escorted by her father,
the stranger spoke, “Don’t cry. She isn’t dead, she’s asleep.”

That’s when the mocking laughter began.
How did he know? Had he been here with the family
from the first moment she fell ill? How did he know?
How dare he give false hope, how dare he
talk such myopic nonsense?

The father waited expectantly; one ear tuned to the wailing,
one to the stranger’s confidence. But she was dead.
How could a father believe? How could he expect what
had never happened before?

But the girl heard only one thing, deep in the sleep of death,
“Get up, child.” Slowly the stranger raised her up, his hand around hers,
while bedside they brought her food.

Oh for the hand that reaches through the curtain of death,
for the voice that speaks even when laughter mocks with its hired breath.
Oh for the touch that extends through the doldrums,
the words that speak costly sentences for no charge.

The father was silent, his daughter in his arms.
And tears mixed with a new sort of disbelief. He
touched her face, her warm and flushed face,
laughed to himself a new sort of mirth
that looks death in the eye and renews his joy
on the day that seemed darker than all others,
for a gift that seemed so delayed.

And he sent the mourners away.

What Has Happened to Our Song?

What Has Happened to Our Song?

(“But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels.” 2 Timothy 2:23)

Whas it because of the onion sky?
Or did the poles shift, east and west, just
before the apocalypse? Stand where your
feet are, planted on the earth. Take the poetry
she gives,
taste the fruit on the vine. Wake with the blue jays
who always announce the days the same.
There is no back door out of this place.
There is no one to blame;
only new mornings, only golden afternoons,
only seasons and half moon bays.
There are windows that record every vibration
like a bee wing’s buzz. There are whispers that
can be heard across the neighborhood calling out
from under clouds, from thunder sounds, and
stifled giggles from children being trained by their dogs.

You thought to write an anthem for the ages,
you hoped we would digest every languid rhyme.
You borrowed more than you created;
you migrated below the radar until the organist remembered
the tune was not yours to begin with.
We inflated your ego for two years too long.
We never wanted you to suffer,
we never called you on the line.
We watched the way you denied that you loaded the dice;
we waited until the end of the day to ask you simply
for an honest attribution. We pinned the notes to your
piano keys hoping they would remind you
the author
was the same as the melodist this time.

What is happening to our song,
what has become of our dialogue between
creation and performance? When we hear the theme
that accompanied our birth we can rehearse again
and sing until our voices are hoarse. We can
play like children in the water no matter who
provided the stream.