The Wind That Bore Testimony

A Narrative Ode in the Manner of Old

pressing Holy Writ for finery

The Wind That Bore Testimony

A Narrative Ode in the Manner of Old

Ere Phoebus’ radiant beams did learn
again to claim their name upon the morn,
ere feathered choristers did yet agree
to lift their voices in harmonious song,
the very air held still—
not voiceless,
but expectant.

Zephyrus abided at the lips of earth
as though the vital breath itself had reached
a threshold most august,
and tarried for the summons
to pass from promise into verity.

The mount had ended its cruelty.
Timber was stained beyond all memory.
Steel cooled, its thirst discharged.
A cry ascended
and was spent—
and the world did lean, albeit but a whit,
so that rock remembered it was dust
and Time did quake, feeling the stir
of sentence reversed.

The veil was rent at first.
Not gently.
Not as cloth gives way to age or wind,
but as truth doth sever falsehood in twain—
from roof to hem—
as though Heaven itself refused
to regard us through tapestry again.

Then the earth—
that ancient hoarder,
that keeper of bones,
that archivist of silent sleep—
did relinquish its hold.

Sepulchers yawned
like eyes that had tarried long in darkness,
like lips that had swallowed prayer
and were now compelled to speak.

And those who lay in slumber deep
were roused at the sound of a summons
that uttered no words,
yet bore authority—
a knowing that passed through marrow
ere ever it touched the hearing.

They rose.

Not as smoke.
Not as tale or rumor.
Not as visions half-remembered at dawn.

But as bodies recon-joined with breath.

Ribs expanded—
testing impossible air.
Fingers flexed—
marveling at their office.
Skin, creased with the grammar of years,
remembered warmth,
remembered burden,
remembered the ancient law of gravity
and welcomed it kindly.

They were saints, Scripture declareth.
Not immaculate, nor polished into legend
or fit for ornament of shrine—
but known to God,
counted by His hand,
hidden with Him,
kept in the dark like seed
until the mighty hinge of history turned
and the gate stood open.

They made no haste.
Resurrection is no frenzy.

They stood where they had fallen—
months and years remote—
in places where names had been spoken
in the past tense,
where tears had learned new habits.

They surveyed their hands
that did still bear the mark of labor and love—
callus and scar,
creases wrought by bread and burial,
evidence that holiness had once worn fatigue.

And the wind returned—
gentle now—
lifting locks from brow and cheek
that bore no prideful triumph,
but only wonder profound,
and that fragile awe
of those who know they have passed
a line no man may cross twice.

For they did not rise with Him.
They waited.

For order endureth in eternity.

He rose first—
the Firstfruits,
the sheaf uplifted,
the proof held aloft
that none might misdeem the harvest
for happenstance or tale.

Then did they follow.

They walked into the city.

Jerusalem ceased not breathing,
but its breath was caught—
as though a minstrel missing a cadence
found the key of his song was changed.

A woman buying grain
looked up and let fall her basket—
wheat scattering as though unbidden offering.
A child ran—
not fleeing, but toward—
arms outstretched, reason forsaken,
to greet a grandsire interred
ere his voice had fully broken.

They appeared before many.
Not crying aloud.
Not proclaiming tenets.
Not explaining themselves.

Their presence sufficed.

Verity had feet.
Verity had carriage.
Verity bore wounds now rendered healed
and eyes that did not demand belief
but made disbelief expensive.

Verity could be touched
and craved no worship.

They were witnesses—
not of themselves,
nor of a miracle private and concealed—
but of Him whose pulse
had cast death’s lock aside
and left the door ajar.

And the wind moved amongst them,
unseen but earnest,
slipping through courtyards and chambers,
bearing astonishment from mouth to mouth,
from gasp unto gasp,
until the city itself felt
a subtle lightness,
as though the air had lost a weight long borne.

Yet wind abideth not.

Nor did they.

Scripture telleth not when they departed,
only that they abode not—
as though Heaven, having wrought its testimony,
closed the tale without embellishment.

For signs are not abiding places.

Here doth the human mind lean toward wonder,
hungry for more—
questioning what Scripture chooseth not to embroider,
pressing Holy Writ for finery
where it offers cloth simple and pure.

Have others risen?
Yes—before and after.

Lazarus, four days unhidden,
called forth to mortal air.
Tabitha, hands folded once again
into acts of charity.
Eutychus, lifted from the floor of death
into the astonished arms of brethren.

They returned to Time.
They aged.
They learned afresh the cost of breath.
They died again.

But the saints of that morning—
those named only by God,
those counted without footnote—
were other.

They rose after Resurrection itself
had crossed the threshold,
after Death had been judged and sentenced,
after the keys had changed sovereign hands.

This was no reversal.
This was triumph.

And thus they returned not to decay.

Now hearken—
hearken to the murmur of ages.

Tales waxed,
for men cannot brook quiet endings,
cannot endure long the portal left ajar
which Scripture chooseth not to fasten.

A wanderer cursed to trod till end of days.
Sleepers hidden in caverns through generations.
Whispers of the undying,
of visages that never age,
walkers just beyond the verge of proof.

But Scripture interposeth—
not sternly,
but with sure resolve—
and correcteth the hunger.

Even the disciple beloved
was not promised endless walking.
Rumour outpaced truth,
and truth followed to set it right.

God leaveth not immortality to wander unclaimed.

He is too pure for confusion.

“Once to die,” it is appointed—
“and after this, the judgment.”

God lieth not.

So where might the witnesses abide?

Ask the wind.

It hath passed through empty tombs
and chambers locked with trembling fear.
It hath moved through martyr’s flame
and hallways of leech and infirmary,
through cloisters, through battlefields,
birth-rooms and sepulchres,
through whispered legends
and the ache of patient waiting.

The wind answereth in riddles,
in trembling leaves,
in the space betwixt sigh and inhalation,
in places where silence liveth,
and faith burneth like breath itself.

They are neither absent nor fully accounted—
like wind that sighs through ruins
and is not held,
yet leaveth its mark everywhere.

Because Christ went to prepare a place—
and where He is now,
there His witnesses must likewise be,
if the mystery of glory still holdeth court
beyond the ken of mortal eyes.

They were not raised to haunt.
They were not raised to wander aimlessly.
They were raised to bear witness.

And testimony, once spoken,
needeth not linger to be true.

It moveth.

It presses ‘gainst doors.
It unsettleth chambers.
It changeth the very weather of belief.

Like wind.

Still moving.

Written by Marguerite Grace

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