"Magdalen in the Garden" by Geoffrey Philp

Magdalen in the Garden

I went to the tomb with the other women
to do what women have always done,
our hands as limp as the rags
we carried to wash away the dried blood
from his eyes, ears, feet, and flesh,
to anoint his body with oils,
with prayers as final as the stone
we expected at the mouth of the cave,
with no one to help us,
not even the boy who laid him out,
blessed our brother with a threadbare sheet
to cover his nakedness until we returned,
but now he wouldn’t follow us
out of fear of those who have always
stood between us and our joy.
And then this man I mistook,
until he spoke the word,
who had never listened to us
when we called ourselves blind,
deaf, crippled, or leprous,
but always saw us as whole,
said, “I am leaving you at this tomb,
which is not an end, but a beginning.”