All they could do.

All they could do,

the gospel writers, and those

who crafted the stories before them,

was to grope in wonder after some words.

Words to convey even a shining edge

of the full mystery. So they wrote of angels

shimmering with white, and an earthquake

that shook the very foundations of both earth

and heaven; and of the surprise

of a disappearing man who could not be grasped

but who was strangely with them still.

Of the impossibly empty space that death

had once occupied. They told of a stone,

the removal of which would have required a forklift,

that had apparently been flicked away

by a divine finger. They wrote of unsurpassed joy

and of hope that had been conjured ex nihilo.

They told of embracings, of illuminating journeys

and intimate dinings, of unexpected recognitions

and equally bewildering disappearances.

Their stories included the elements of honest fear,

uncertainty, and disbelief;

as if to underline the wonder.

One who they had loved,

in whom the Divine One appeared to dwell,

and who, they all attested, had been killed;

was somehow present. Living. Decades on.

All they could do was grope

in the diminished darkness, and hope

to find some words.

© Ken Rookes