This Marathon of Hope**

By Susi Moser

I've always wondered

about the hush in the streets of Jerusalem

on the day after Easter.

What did the people talk about --

The killers, the bystanders, the disillusioned?

If they dared.

Did they huddle in the courtyards

to organize the revolution?

Did they solemnly swear to carry on his work?

Did anyone publicly commit to love?

Because in this marathon of hope

there are always others to relieve us

in bearing the courage necessary

to arrive at the goal

which lies beyond death.

Or were the streets muted with sighs of relief

and the shuffle of busyness,

no one meeting their neighbor's eye?

What keeps us from sleeping

Is that they have threatened us with Resurrection!

I've always wondered

whether Jesus thought once before he died

that he had forgotten something,

Whether he regretted anything

that he had left undone,

Whether for a moment

he may have feared that

no one would remember

that he had lived

and rebelled,

that he had fed the hungry

and made the blind see,

that he had defended the outcast

and made the lame walk.

Did Jesus doubt once

that any of it mattered?

Soon those who could remember

Would die as well.

They have threatened us with Resurrection

because they are more alive than ever before

because they transform our agonies

and fertilize our struggle

Was his despair on the cross

about the futility of our deeds?

All the things we will not finish,

All the things that do not matter,

All the knowledge that will be lost,

And the gestures no one will ever see?

Or was his last sigh surrender at last,

a final surrender,

to the imperative of love,

to the inevitability of life

urging on beyond death?

In my boldest dreams

I imagine Jerusalem silent

on the day after the resurrection

with people grappling wordlessly

with the inescapable charge to become

-- regardless of outcome

-- regardless of death

who they were born to be.

** The title of this poem and italicized sections are lines from Julia Esquivel's poem "They have threatened us with Resurrection." Ms. Esquivel is an exiled Guatemalan teacher and poet who now lives in the United States.

Susi Moser, Ph.D., is by training a geographer and earth scientist, and currently works as a research scientist for the National Center for Atmospheric Research. She may be reached by email at smoser@ucar.edu