Re-born

By Elizabeth Clark

1983 Poetry Contest

Second Place Winner

While earth’s face glistens with the night’s long rain,

Still cleansing water hangs upon the air

With heaviness of sweat: the drops of pain

That wet the laboring woman’s brow and hair.

The wind blew where it listed leaving none

Of winter’s natural stains. There is a dearth

Of waking birds returned to greet the sun,

All frighted to wing by the groaning earth.

A ruddy streamlet courses from the cave

To flow unstaunched beyond the footpaths worn

Among the dripping, budded trees, to lave

The world without the garden—weed and thorn.

No one has witnessed in the waning gloom

The risen Lord delivered from the tomb.