This week’s poem in the Catholic Poetry Room is by Cynthia Erlandson.
A Psalm for Lazarus
“Do you show your wonders among the dead? Shall the dead rise up again and praise
you? Shall your wondrous works be known in the dark and your righteousness in the land
of oblivion?” — Psalm 88: 10, 12
Shall the dead rise up again and praise you?
How shall all your wondrous works be known
In darkness, shown
To one whose grave-clothed eyes can have no view?
Will your loving-kindness be forgot
By him who lies behind this senseless stone?
No light has shone
Where surely this man’s flesh begins to rot.
Where are your wonders? Have they turned to naught?
Your righteousness and truth – do they still live?
And we who grieve:
Must we be shrouded now, in clouds of doubt?
Shall the grave declare your faithful ways
To those inside the earth who lie alone
Where not a bone
Can feel your sun’s illuminating rays?
Yet this man must have heard your lordly shout,
“Lazarus, come out!”
From the author’s collection, Foundations of the Cross and Other Bible Stories.
Cynthia Erlandson is a poet and fitness professional. Her three collections are These Holy Mysteries, poems for the church year; Notes on Time, a tribute to the themes of time and music; and Foundations of the Cross and Other Bible Stories. Her poems have appeared in The Book of Common Praise hymnal, First Things, The Society of Classical Poets, The Catholic Poetry Room, Modern Age, and elsewhere. She is a Top Four winner of the 2023 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest.
