The Gardener (Lent Poems 35)
Why do you cry? the strangers asked,
As if it were unclear, the tomb gaping wide
While beasts and marauders
Took Him who-knows-where!
And my eyes like rivers flooded grief
While my voice strained into words:
Please, they have taken away my Lord;
Another choke. I do not know where.
Then behind me, a new man
Asking, softly, the same: Why are you crying?
And the look in his eyes speaking,
Somehow, of knowledge. Sir, I said, if
It’s you that has taken him, can you please tell me?
The soil and the greenness of the new day
Were thick about him and his eyes full of the sun.
Into mine they looked and, in a flash, all
The gardens in the universe came
Together in life and new growth in my soul.
And the prince of the heavens, standing before me,
Dug deep to the roots of me, said to me: Mary.
The Consolations of Writing 