Witnesses, by Jo Taylor

The Raising of Lazarus, by Caravaggio (Italy) 1609

Witnesses
 
In this winter of woe, I went looking for hope
and found it in the purple pansy’s fight for life, in
the maple leaf’s ice crystals, illuminated by the sun.
I discovered it in the spider’s long web, the cricket’s
loud chirp, the bluebell’s sweet swansong. I saw it
in the ravens’ twice-daily care package to the prophet
of old and in today’s experimental drug designed
for disease difficult and rare, rare like the white
peacock in the grasslands of Australia. I witnessed
it in the rhythm of the rain, in the salmon’s epic journey
to spawn and die, in strangers’ fist and elbow bumps,
in their good wishes. And I heard it in the instructions
at a Bethany burial site over two thousand years ago--
unbind him and let him loose.

Jo Taylor

Jo Taylor is a retired, 35-year English teacher from Georgia.  Her favourite genre to teach high school students was poetry, and today she dedicates more time to writing it.  In 2021 she published her first collection of poems, Strange Fire.  She enjoys morning walks, playing with her two grandsons, ages four and seven, and collecting and reading cookbooks.