Life through death
crucified and risen.
Resurrection – 
rooted in death,
a slain lamb 
taken lifeless from the cross.
Your vacant flesh
spiced, swaddled,
entombed behind the stone.
Your life-filled Spirit, 
in swift surrender
plummeted through the passage, 
the place between the worlds.

You could have risen, 
had immediate access 
to His embrace, 
Son obedient to the end.
You chose instead
the unknown descent,
still seeking lost sheep.
Crossed the abyss 
beyond life’s borders.
The realm of gloom 
and darkness, dust 
from which none arise 
your destination.

You traversed
ancient thresholds,
vast graveyards 
of all who’ve gone before. 
You breached the gates of Sheol
dispossessed its one-way passage,
culled the slumbering souls,
reversed captivity 
released those bound 
to go before you,
a straight-swift passage to
their Father’s breast. 
You could have risen, 
the ever-living Word,
a firstfruit offered, waved 
before Your father’s throne.
You chose instead 
divine suspension,
a final garden sunrise visit,
freed from flesh, 
yet not glorified.
Eternal inclusion
proclaimed by your presence.

Three days, three nights.
Early morning’s empty tomb.
A woman waits, walks, 
weeps in blindness, unconsoled. 
For all who grieve, 
who cannot comprehend 
the mystery of godliness, 
Your choice to tarry, 
lay aside the glory
offers comfort, allays the grief,
grants the stunning gift of witness.

The course now run,
reconciliation realized.
The Son returned, 
the circle whole,
all loss restored,
the Father’s love is satisfied.

Three hundred 
sixty-five 
times six days 
almost. 
You walked. 
the same steps
the same journey,
the same companion
no expectation 
of difference. 

The same sun-bright 
heat-shimmering waves 
sheening from
the same stones
the same guards
the same guns
sentinels on the same walls
the same armed defenders
walk your same path
each day the same

Autistic brother,
beloved son. 
for you no difference
soldiers, Arabs, Jews
the same.

Hand-held
your phone 
ready, waiting
mayhap to hear
your father’s voice
your mother’s tones
the same day voices
familiar as the stones
worn, polished 
underneath your feet.

This day, changed
shouts, sounds, 
your ears accosted
fear surrounds, 
overwhelms. 
Terror chased,
you seek safe space.
You race, 
a blind flight escape
from rains of living fire.

No refuge 
from the chase.
Seven times bullets 
breach the boundaries,
your young flesh bleeds red 
amidst the rubbish. 
No shield 
no shelter found.
The garbage room
your final destination.

The streets, the walls the same
the guns, the guards the same
they never saw 
will never see 
the rareness that was you. 

* In memory of Iyad al-Halaq, a young, unarmed Palestinian man on his way to a special needs school in the Old City of Jerusalem, when Israeli border police chased, shot and killed him.

Father of five, 
alive to see this day.
One hundred and forty 
foodless days. 
Alive, unfree, 
shunted to the margins 
of a sealed bureaucracy. 
Can you breathe? 
Can you think 
as your organs shrink, 
begin to die within?
Is freedom, justice 
more important than your life, 
your slow death
by the hand of those
whose power is absolute?
Captive to soulless, endless
administrative detention. 
No trial, 
no court hearing, 
no evidence 
for how many days,  
how many years? 
No proof 
to bolster the claim
that you “endanger regional security.”  
Accomplices, all 
who will not take a stand, 
who will turn their eyes 
from the shrinking man.
Day 140 –  
Your dignity intact. 
Your choice 
to face, 
embrace death,
rather than illicitly confess.
Your choice, 
will it open the eyes 
of a blind society?
Voyeurs, hypocrites all 
who watch the slowing 
of your heart, your breath,
your life.  

January 3, 2022 © Lisa Loden (On January 4, Day 141, Israel cancelled Hisham’s Administrative Detention)

An ordinary piece of wood, discarded
too long to fit the fire,
too short to stake the desert tents,
fit to be a walking stick.
Moses gripped me in that desert place
and there I saw the bush that burned
and burned and unlike me
was not to be consumed.

Infinite power surged
through my cellulose veins
when Moses cast me to the ground.
Transformation touched me,
transfigured, no more the simple staff.
In Aaron’s hand, become a swallowing snake,
with power fearsome, pure enough
to purge Egyptian pride and might.

I was not forgotten in the fleeing,
and at the Sea of Reeds
again my fibrous veins filled,
flowed with force enough to split the sea.
And still he walked with me
through desiccated desert sands
once again a simple staff
on which to lean and rest.

Till Meribah, where there I saw
no power, no awesome show,
no mysterious might,
but water, shame and humbled pride.
Anger used me and
defiled, I heard the sentence
not to ever enter, ever to remain
on Nevo’s heights, to see and never touch.

In Moses’ day this
was the final rest.
Through all the desert journeying
finally come to see the promise,
lush valleys, rivers, streams,
a land of milk and giants,
with honey never tasted
hidden in its depths.