Downtown Lazarus
A poem from the margins
by Jani Kelly
I saw you there and passed you by, uncaring as I hurried on my busy way.
You were dressed in mismatched faded clothes.
A Lazarus sitting at the rich man’s gate of my awareness.
You were hungry, not for coin or food,
But for a word, a smile, some sign that you exist.
That you too belong and someone cares!
Ashamed, I later returned to bid you well.
But alas your place was empty and never did you return!
Were you some Heavenly Being whose visitation put me to a test I failed?
Or had you been caught up in angel wings to rest in Abraham’s embrace
And crowned with glory as Honored Guest?
At a Feast to which I will not be asked?
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