A woman in the choir is lifting her hands,
palms up, Jesus raised from the tomb

to testify his flesh closing to scars
over the holes spikes impaled each hand

wide to the cross, crucified arms spread open
to all, each finger fluttering as if wings

of the dove, spirit hovering above the Christ
in the stained-glass depiction large above the choir,

Jesus-God come to earth, fire and water
commingled, Good Shepherd gathering

the little children, loving them to himself,
God humbled in the arms of the desert prophet

laying Jesus beneath the river’s darkness
to lift him resurrected to Easter rising–

Spirit and Truth asking only Love, Humility,
Faith for all come to plead

for help against such impossible belief,
five senses in abeyance, coming to the Word

spoken against darkness, Word of form
and light, Creation come again . . .

again for lepers cast out, lining city streets,
attentive to any voice turning away wrath;

again for young women who cannot lift their eyes
to their savior writing in the dust with his finger

their names, who embrace his feet with tears,
costly oil saved for the wedding to come;

again for ragged men come clean of demons,
clothed now in quiet minds;

again for stick figures of paralytics, arms
and legs untwining to wobble stand,

a testament of praise; again for
the man born sightless who answers

scoffers, “I only know that I was blind
and now I see”; and again for all

the judged and found wanting, asking
without a right to hope, “Remember me.”