No hope remained
when his battered body
entered my granite womb.
I wanted to weep
when his last friends
laid his lifeless form
within me upon a carved
slab of rock as if on a lap.
Then they left him
tucked in safely
behind a boulder.
Entombed.
Two days passed and
He remained stiff and cold.
Still I cradled his flesh
with fierce tenderness
like a mother would hold
her newborn child.
But on the third day
I could hold him no longer.
His heart began to warm,
Then it began to beat
His chest rose and fell
as He began to draw breath.
Wrapped in burial linens
Within my quiet darkness
He labored and rested,
labored and rested
like a butterfly shedding
its cramped cocoon.
When at last he stood
I trembled
dislodging the rock
that sealed the doorway
and He stepped out
into the garden, unbound,
unhindered, forever.
Alive.