Poem June 28, 1982 Issue

Lazarus, come forth!

a freedom poem for the world

BARBARA COOK

To every human being on earth
whose light seems sepulchered by crushing tyranny,
Truth sings, forever unsuppressed, "Not dead, but sleeping."
And Love's eternal child, the Christ, to each is crying,
"Lazarus, come forth! Come forth,
because there isn't any power to stop you."

Does matter-force exist to stifle, squeeze, contract,
man's radiant starlight into oblivion?

If light and the forces of the universe were physical,
if the "draw and hold" on man were gravity and magnetism,
man might be the prisoner of forces destined to collapse his light,
entomb identity where no twinkling could escape. But

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