A Poem: To Witness

I love.
I love from here.
From my heart which burns and beats,
and smiles and cries.

Which starts and smarts
with each move and turn of
the subjects
of my love.

I am mother, I am wife.
I am friend and lover of God.
But my heart
is inside out.

Love does that.
It makes us walk
while standing still,
the paths of the ones we love.

Love asks this of us
or its not true.
And I sit now with the women
who loved Jesus more than life.

I, who know something
of love,
know something of how
they may have felt.

To not be able do anything at all
but sit still,
and bear witness
to another’s walk.

This is love.
This is how we know that we do,
love.
We will lie down, we will stand, we will sit and cry.

Smile and listen
and try and carry it all.
We will think of you
when we are not with you.

We will pray for you
and beseech heaven for you,
and try and push away
the stones.

But most of all
we will bear witness,
and walk with you
that the cross you carry

is never borne alone.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Easter Saturday
April 2017

“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.”
John 19:25