Israel Wasserstein: “Lazarus”

April 8, 2007

Israel Wasserstein: “Lazarus”

[He gave me permission to post some of his poems, so I'm all over it! I thought this one would work well for Easter.]

Lazarus

Three days I lay dead in the tomb.
Three days, and now they look
to me with wary eyes,

as if they want to ask, but are afraid.
I understand their fear, though You
brought me back, pulled me
squinting into the world of the living,

into the brighthot morning.
You could tell me, if you chose,
what I learned in the tomb

that slipped away as life returned.
I remember so little—darkness,
the hissing wind, and, muffled
by the wind, words.

As I try to recapture them, they slip
from me, always at the edge
of thought, just beyond reach.

You, too, have come from death
and returned, scars etched
across your body. You must have heard
the words. Will you at last speak?

Tell me what there is to learn in darkness
and the storm, in all that I wished to know,
all I could not hold.

–Israel Wasserstein, unpublished (c. 2005)

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