Mary Meditation at Dawn

The sun
has managed to wake me
again
climbing high over the hills
of the river bank
to ignite the air around me
where birds and their songs
are making sense out of music.

Mary Magdeline
was there with the dawn too,
on these last days before Easter,
when the sun woke her teacher;
her sweetest friend,
woke them over the dry hills
of their own secret terror,
their own fatal mistakes.

The memory says that man was his friend,
loved for his betrayals, lies,
and for the insult of stealing coins
from the purse of the poor,
but Mary loved the teacher;
the wiser soul--
her own little lamb.

Mary Magdeline loved the way
her hair smelled
after she oiled and perfumed
the tired feet of this intimate stranger
and with that rich scent
she carried him,
beyond the body,
to the embrace
of a tomb.

Wake up to the violence
of that death,
that longing to give away everything,
and you might understand faith
in time that travels
inside light.

You who believes in nothing
might pull words out of the air,
like birds and a forgotten song,
to find meaning
in the promise of a love
that becomes as empty
as a ghost
that whispers
near memory--

a meditation
at dawn.