I have tried to write us into the third person for this Passover mitzvah
He for you, she for me
“Do you take this man? Do you take this woman?”
Some iteration of a
long-ago covenant made and broken in a garden
Careful to avoid her gaze as you give her sour fruit
Mixed with all the other intentional elements of our redemption
She lames her ankle on the descent, finds her ever-less-corporal-self still bound by grief and pain as the light cotton shift falls to her feet
You must shower, girl, leave all the light behind
And enter into this entirely different kind of
Love story
Walk ahead, don’t look back
Never let him know how much it costs to stay
Inside the dark box of the bet he lost
For both of you
I want rudimentary shelving in the wild backyard for the Walmart canoes
I want an art table
And an extra large button-down shirt with flecks of paint already on it
I want a shelter for the sun and shelter for the darkness
I want the trees to grow up around us, ramparts
And the tiny praying mantis to have a disproportionate number of siblings
Rain, so the river can rise above the exposed and naked roots of the
Already. Dying.
The sun inhales deep, swims down, down to us through a drowned world of trees, still our guardian angels, bright fish dart among them, impersonating song birds, the children are not safe here anymore
As ordinary men huddle and cast lots
for the seamless robe of
God
Mangling the vulgate so close to the end of our story, dive, I tell him. Dive into the deep
Blue water, temporary darkness
The way a man may rise
From his own grave, from his shroud
If the voice of the Divine
Calls him back
He has found a little stream, dips his feet into the water away from all the others. When I ask him about all he has lost, he shrugs as if to say
Lost wife
Lost country
Lost king
Lost friends
But he has new friends now, even among the children and grandchildren and great grandchildren of his erstwhile wife.
He recites these my-life-for-yours words as if the man who wrote them had written them for him…
….He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him. [18] The lot causeth contentions to cease, and parteth between the mighty. [19] A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle. [20] A man’s belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled. [21] Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. [22] Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing , and obtaineth favour of the Lord . [23] The poor useth intreaties; but the rich answereth roughly. 24] A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly:
…there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
Let us wait here, darling
Until he comes.
Days before the Passover lamb, John the Baptist mends her long robe, pours oil over wounds with words which make sense only to the dead, faith the fire we warm our hands by,
Let me in, let me in says the moon and the wind, let me in to the stillness of everlasting, as even now the children begin to
Lay down their outer garments, their palm branches, as we all sing, hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
We are close now, so close .
Methuselah lived 969 years, which means that at just over 100, my grandfather was a spring chicken, as lifespans go. That notwithstanding he got a lot done. Married, participated in at least three wars, fathered children, buried some. Lost a wife, found another, called me his oldest unmarried granddaughter for as long as it applied.
I loved him in all his iterations, in all his familiar imperfections, but I know Someone who loves him more.
The One who is the Road
The All and Only
Road Home.
Psalm 116
We are collectively surprised at how ephemeral the boat is, balloonish, easily punctured. As are we. I wonder if the others have drawn the same conclusions-we have become ghosts in our erstwhile stories, still haunted by the house, by the spouse, by the hope we left behind.
Only Lazarus whistles a chipper tune. Why is he so happy? Because nothing is a cool hand to lose.
We sit in the shade, it is all shade here, so incorporeal, so many of us, all waiting for a voice, for a light, for The Before The After, the now and forever, we talk of sunsets, the way the sun might send one last piercing shaft of light up through the darkening sky, faith-hope-love coming for us, they say, these men who have seen the-greatest-of-these-is-love
But when? How long until
We are irrevocably
Called to life.
Carrying Light 