Hannah Gaskins Pabon’s addition to the Almond Tree Artist Collective‘s Lent and Easter art installation is titled, Another Way of Seeing, “He Wept.” This detail moved me and inspired a response below. You may view Hannah’s other work on her Instagram HERE.

You may listen to me read the poem via the player below.

I. King David
All day long my tears have been my food;
I feast on groans; see not one thing good
While men scoff all day, laugh at me,
“Where is your God?” they ask mockingly.
How long it has been since I leaped
Coming to Your House, with tears of joy wept?

II. Lazarus
Would he, indignant over a friend who died,
Who before his tomb broke down and cried,
Would he, who is resurrection and life,
Though pierced by death with grief as a knife,
Would his tears gather up and keep
The tears of all those who mourn and weep?

III. Mary Magdalene
Mary, before dawn, went to the tomb
To do for him the last thing she could do
For the one whom she loved, who had set her free
Who on Friday died, cursed, hanged on a tree.
The tomb emptied, not one thing left,
Leaving Mary only the tears she wept.

Then from behind she heard him speak,
“Why are you crying? Whom do you seek?”
Blinded by tears, she sobbed, “I can’t find him.
Have they taken my Lord, stole him again?”
When he said, “Mary,” her heart leaped,
And she saw through the veil of tears she’d wept.

IV. You and I
What of us? What shall be done with the tears
We’ve wept? Who shall quiet the storm of fears?
Shall our tears too be caught up and swept
Away in the tears the Lord Jesus wept?
Yes, every tear, till not one’s left,
For our tears are those for whom Jesus wept.

© Randall Edwards 2023