Murmuration

Murmuration

The Saturday after Good Friday means

Jesus still has one more night

in the tomb, one more parting dark,

darker than the dark of night can be

in such this place, having known

no man, as this recently cleaved

sepulcher.  (imagine

                the cutters freeing the living

                door blow by blow, their adze

                axe all tremor against their skin,

                muscling to get in.)

Of the three, that second night’s the longest,

isn’t it, the stone since rolled against the sun,

her moon hanging against a branch

covering her face.  Because the first night is gone

and there wasn’t a settling, only a spook,

and the grip of linen swelling in the choke

of decay.  It’s just starting for him.  (maybe

                the best thing about being dead

                is we just can’t sense

ourselves.)

And somewhere else, blocks and blocks

away, a woman is stirring a bowl of unguents,

she is pounding an aromatic herb, adding

it to the resin and oil, and tomorrow

she’ll go, she’ll remove those winding sheets,

start at the feet the way the other woman

did, and rub all morning, all day, into

the third night.  (but not before she drizzles

                ounce after ounce on herself,

                starting with the her own toes, between

                each one and upward into places

                we close curtains against,

                until her whole body buzzes,

                sweetens like the lion Samson     

                left on the roadside…

In the morning, when the barrenness

of it all will be revealed, when the linens

are a heap on the floor, won’t her unction

begin to congeal, and won’t the wind

above the hill of Gethsemane catch

a whiff of it and perfume

a swarm of starlings with it and won’t

and he be the first guest to lean into

the murmuration, to soon be lost

in the liquid rock of it all, rising up

and out and through, while a golden

Mary peers into the empty dark,

her heart suddenly a songbird?