It was Mary Magdalene’s
face that caught my eye,
giggling around the camp fire,
leading the line of dancing laughing
women and men as Jesus and others
sang the rhythm.
Jesus sang their happiness
and threaded through
tender touches of words
of love and generosity,
taught afresh their humanity.
————————
He sang through the streets,
as they walked, with grace notes
tuning into the prison of pain,
hearing your song, as though
he has come
just for
you.
————————
He sang the country roads
in the darkness of days
and met the wandering shepherds.
His refrain sought out folk in
fearful hiding and gave
them a light to hold –
in their shaking hands and
he gave them their voice –
songs of strength and dignity,
hope and unity, threading them all
with the blessing of belonging
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to him, and he included
them from the margins
as he sang his innocence to Pilate
and his Willingness to his father
to sing the agony of the lash,
the cruel cross until he sang the crystal
Song of Resurrection.
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All around his stereo song has made
ways through the wilderness
leading along a narrow and stony
way, in which we stumble as
his baritone ballad
balances our being.
