Passing
I’ve just received a text that says a buddy
died last night but that doctors brought him back
to us with a shot, and so my friend is a Lazarus.
I’m in a boat house owned by another old pal;
he is traveling for work somewhere abroad.
Mallards have lifted from the vernal pond,
and thousands of frogs are singing
because it’s raining. I wish Bill was here so we could
talk about our friend who has gone and returned.
Crows call to each other across the lake. Same old
story: there’s danger and it surrounds us. And now
the blue heron I’d failed to notice pulls his legs
free of mud and flies away. A small falcon skims
the shoreline. When he was raised, was Lazarus pleased?
I wonder how he lived the rest of his unforeseen days.
Were his preparations any different than they’d been before?
It’s early March, and Easter will be here soon. Jesus, too,
realized how permeable the membrane is that keeps us
this side of death, and that the dead can come back
if they’re summoned. The ducks, the hawk, and the heron
have passed on through to somewhere else,
but the joyful frogs remain crazy
with song. A hunter’s gunshots punctuate the distance,
a single crow lands in the crook of a tree, and it seems
as though the blessed rain has nearly stopped for now. 