Having to do with the raising of Lazarus, and no less
the crucifixion of Jesus himself once the Pharisees
realize the power of a voice that can call forth the dead.
Jesus seems to be identifying with this brother of Martha
and Mary, with in fact the whole weeping community.
Take away the stone, Lazarus come forth, and he that was
dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes;
and his face was bound about with a napkin. Loose him
and let him go.
Then why am I now weeping all the time,
who does not want to be called forth, let alone wrapped
in white? I believe in death, I believe in the last tree I will
ever see, perhaps with wind in it just as it’s turning color.
I believe in my friends’ weeping and in the terrible sorrow
of my wife, but why, on this side of things, with death still
only a small secret moving inside me, am I so hurt with pity
for myself, as if, one by one, anything I touch will disappear,
whatever I see deeply will suddenly become invisible to me?
Is it the loneliness, the body gone, the table and the chair
and the bowl that had the heartless flowers floating in it?
So that all that is left is whatever a soul is as your stand-in?
When I was alive I remember feeling myself beside myself
sometimes, as if I’d already passed to somewhere else and
for that moment was in two places at once, no place and
a place without me: a moment, I suppose, so lonely it was
enough to make you weep, though not so much then but
later when the absence stayed with you and became you.
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