Empty Tomb

What would it have been like?

The first Easter morn to go to the tomb,

ready to do the last act of love

and find it empty

grief rises sharp, familiar, blinding my heart.

To just have touched him one last time.

Anointing the beloved, caressing the oil 

and spices into his dead flesh

The the gardener is before you.

Where? Why? How? please let me  see him

Let me do this one last act of love

or I am lost, out of my mind with grief.

Then a voice reaches through the grief and the fog.

My name is said and I know

in that instant love is standing before me.

A love which healed my wounded mine, soul.

Speaks through my blinding grief,to heal me once again.

I have to call the name back.

It burns on my tongue.  Rabboni!

Copyright Annette Joseph