Easter Day: Poetry & Painting : Emmaus

The Servant Girl at Emmaus

(A Painting by Velázquez)

She listens, listens, holding

her breath. Surely that voice

is his—the one

who had looked at her, once, across the crowd,

as no one ever had looked?

Had seen her? Had spoken as if to her?

Surely those hands were his,

taking the platter of bread from hers just now?

Hands he'd laid on the dying and made them well?

Surely that face—?

The man they'd crucified for sedition and blasphemy.

The man whose body disappeared from its tomb.

The man it was rumored now some women had seen this morning, alive?

Those who had brought this stranger home to their table

don't recognize yet with whom they sit.

But she in the kitchen, absently touching

           the wine jug she's to take in,

a young Black servant intently listening,

swings round and sees

the light around him

and is sure. 

Denise Levertov (1923–1997)

For Levertov's poetry, see Paul A. Lacey and Anne Dewey (editors), with an Introduction by Eavan Boland,The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov (New York: New Directions, 2013), 1063pp.