My mom had surgery to replace her pacemaker this week, so I was with her rather than in my studio this week. Therefore, instead of a painting, I wrote a poem about my belief in resurrection.

To a Dead Poet

When I recall those ‘biding in the dust,
inheritors of their swaddled parents’ trust
in falsehood’s anodyne, when earth was old
but life was young, to them the Lie was told,
retold, passed-on, established as a creed,
“They would not die complete;” they would not bleed
their thoughts into the ground along with skull
and entrails, so it went, no mortal end annul
their disembodied Self’s escape. Did you
believe it so? Despite or perhaps in lieu,
you scrawled your heart’s estate in verse, your nous
in ink, inhered in this, your life’s excuse,
and I have read your words, dear pilgrim fool.
You spoke to me through them. Lest ridicule
befall me for my expectation of
your reappearance in the flesh, my love,
I pledge that from within my grave I’ll wait
the waking of us both, to each, Heart’s Mate.

NBH