Jason is Risen

                                                  for Jason Shinder (1955-2008)
                                                 Easter 2011

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I can see you now
shaking hands as you both

ascend, you’re cracking a joke about
being Jewish, the word

levitation, how he did in three days
what it’s taken you three long years

to accomplish, astonished, so pleased
to meet him, celebrity

subject of two millennia’s worth
of art and poetry, God bless, some great, most

not so, and you, so afraid you’d be
forgotten, suddenly

seated at the right hand, beaming, best friends,
waving like a royal, not believing

your good fortune but letting the words fall
lightly from your lips,

but lofty, but lovely, upon us bereft, left
wanting here below, God bless, God bless, God bless.