My bones have been scraped
free of flesh, free of tendons,
muscles, veins—my heart is gone.
The marrow in my bones
is disappearing fast
and I am fragile,
dissolving into dust.
With a gust of wind
my cells could scatter.
Yet I’ve been gathered back
into a womb of sorrow
All light is gone but I am held,
wrapped in silence,
wrapped in my creator’s hands.
My cells, formed by love
are reforming, knit together
in the dark cave—
the internal tomb—
where resurrection
can take place within God’s
compassionate embrace.
Jeanette W. Stickel, author of several children’s books, including the award-winning Mama’s Needle, lives in Mendocino, Calif.
This appears in the December 2022 issue of Sojourners
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