His hands are bound about with linen bands,
Still now, no more with vivid gesture telling
Stories to thrill to; healing, kindly hands,
Their black wounds hidden by the sweetly smelling
Myrrh-soaked bindings. And the women weeping
Have turned away and left him dumbly lying
Like a thing in the darkness, and when the light comes leaping
In the spring dawn, he will still be sleeping.
The day long of lamenting and of crying,
Here he will be, still and cold and lonely,
In his last rest. Where has he gone, the flying
Soaring life of him? Deep down, defying
Death in his den, setting them free, the only
Lord of Life, raising the dead to joy undying.
tRuth 2019
image © Liberanapoli CC BY SA 3 (Wikimedia Commons)
poem prayer silence 