Lent Writing 2021 - #1 - CONVERSATION WITH THE DIVINE TAILOR AT THE FIRST RESURRECTION

Conversation with the Divine Tailor at the First Resurrection

 

“Leave it,” he said,

when the Tailor finally got to his hands.

The blood had been washed away from his forehead -

gentle, feminine, human hands worked herbs into linen,

wet with tears,

stroked across his silent chest,

dabbed the dried blood from his scissored side

leaving the minty scent of hyssop in his hair.

The Tailor did the rest,

changed it one wound at a time, 

making new the jagged flesh -

scrubbing, stitching, polishing and bronzing 

so quickly it appeared to have happened all at once

because time was no longer a matter of measurement, 

though, for the sake of the earthlings, 

(who still used such tokens in their story making)

they agreed to count up to three.

 

“Let’s make you new again,” the Tailor said, 

pleased to be able, finally, to use the skills he’d been honing.

 

“Leave those,” he whispered again,

when he got to his hands.

 

The scars remain,

so I am told, 

even though the rest of the body is reclaimed as new.

He wears them, perhaps,

the way I wear that pin on my lapel

each Mother’s day.

I stab it through the fibers of my blouse and seal it shut,

silently telling everyone at church,

as if they didn’t know by the crushed Cheerios around my feet,

and the scent of a spent diaper against my hip,

that I am Mother.

 

I used to think he kept those scars to prove who he is,

and what he did.

But maybe he just wants to remember, 

for sentimental reasons,

that time when he was known to us,

and shown to us,

(the ones who crush our sustenance around his feet)

simply as, 

Jesus.

(Today is the first day of Lent during a worldwide pandemic. It's been a year since the world began to shut down with this Pandemic. My writing, during this Lenten season, has no rhyme nor reason - much like this poem. This is a first draft. Perhaps an only draft, as my objective in Lent writing is to write fresh every day during the season of Lent.)