I’m cast adrift, in a state of
suspended animation, from
everything I’ve ever known,
only hearing from afar my
sisters’ voices that have
strange and thrilling
resonance.

There’s a sunburst I now
see zooming in, in this unfamiliar
terrain, swirling around like
a luminous rosette. The light
draws me in yet pushes me back
when I’m lured into it like a moth.

I struggle against this encirclement
of light that seems to disown me,
leaving me stuck in limbo where
there’s space to see none as here
or there nor up or down, and
neither past nor tomorrow.

I only hear the sounds of grief
Maria and Martha, my sisters, wail,
not wailed, over my death to my sad
lament, in this, my town of Bethany.
When I’m about to fall into deep
slumber, I hear a stone being rolled
and a thunder like the sound of many
waters says: “Lazarus, come forth!!!”