Jesus halted on
the road outside Nain
where a woman’s
wailing drenched the air.
Out of the gates
poured a somber procession
of dark-shawled
women, hushed children,
young men bearing
a litter that held
a body swathed in
burial clothes,
and the woman
walking alone.
A widow then – another bundle
of begging rags at the city gates.
a bruised reed!
Her loud grief
labored and churned in him till
Halt! he shouted.
The crowd, the
woman, the dead man stopped.
Dust raised by
sandaled feet,
settled down on
the sandy road.
Insects waited in
shocked silence.
He walked to the
litter, grasped a dead hand.
Young man, he called
in a voice that
shook the walls of Sheol,
I command you, rise!
The lines stirred.
Two firstborn sons
from Nazareth and Nain
met, eye to eye.
He placed the
pulsing hand in hers.
Woman, behold your son, he smiled.
--Irene Zimmerman,
Firstborn
Sons and the Widow of Nain,
in Woman
Un-Bent
Poem source
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