The Dead

The dead do not walk and ravage flesh and trample

do not haunt us into mimicking their traditions

and repeating their creeds until our numb tongues

stop tasting spice and heat and sour and now

The dead do not sit impatient judging us from next Thursday

or from some ill-calculated millennial crashing horizon

wondering if we will ever figure it out and solve the puzzle

as well as they did in their spurt of energized entropy on earth

The dead sing to us their layered madrigals of mettle

that we will listen to their small triumphs of concrete love

and sympathize with their incarnate suffering without verdict

welcoming what shards of their wisdom survived modernity

These holy ones draw us into the future with silk string tugs

urging us to feel the gentle pull even now in this still and stuck day

swamping our hearts with this one mystery that floods us all

the finite bears the infinite, even their and our wrecked finitudes

So on this point the Bible is surely wrong about the future

that there will be no more tears in the holy city

their eyes water the river of life with joy overflowing

as they sit with us already sipping wine on the downtown shore