Who is this, rising, not yet risen,

sheered, blackened, lined

with worry, keeling

like a righting ark,

tongue-tied,

eyes front,

ears ringing,

inky hand drawn up obliquely,

one foot still dead in the grave?

          Just one of the Joneses, leading

          out, last of the disappearing men so beautiful.

What does he see, not facing us—

awed, awkward, almost

graceless, this mass

materializing

before forbidding eyes,

wounds yet wide,

passing by

into the impenetrable white

still coursing life and light?

          The son of the mother under the tree, knowing

          the worst of us, your very own.

Count, count the unmistakable marks.

Sing, sing the unsingable part!

He is the warrior,

newly home from the wars,

shell-shocked,

unthinking,

regathering flesh and bone—

half alarmed at his own body,

half ashamed to be alive,

utterly oblivious to the cries of jubilation

welling from the darkness

dying

at his back.