Elizabeth

Elizabeth

Heather Kaufmann

I. The Withering

Once there was a womb-life
that grew to the size of my palm
then withered, severed, ceased
to be in me, like the emptying of sand
through a sieve, rendering my hopes
as barren as my body.

I’m now 87, my work-worn
skin as shriveled as my womb,
and you, O Adonai of Life,
are so far off from this waste-
land where I have waned
beneath the unforgiving sun.

Take this womb from me.
Drain me of this longing
for life, this all-consuming
ache for a legacy of breath
to fill the air with my name
for generations to come.

II. The Temple

Yesterday you were so close
my husband heard your Messenger
in the temple, where you promised
to fill my womb again, to birth
a warm and breathing body
into my no longer expectant arms.

Bathe my withered skin
in the oil of gladness,
make of my body a temple,
a streambed refilled. Do this
and I, like Hannah,
will pledge my son to you.

His breath will be a cleansing
rain, showering on us the name
that generations have awaited.
No more these legacies of death.
All will be birth.
You, God, are near.

III. The Song

From the womb of my cousin I hear a song
that speaks to my deepest aches, calling
to the minnowing life I also carry,
who leaps like a fish attempting to break
through a lake with no surface, safe as he is
in the perpetual baptism of the inner pool.

Her voice joins the song then—
a praise and a promise of all these two
we carry would fulfill, one to lay
the Jerusalem road and one to walk
upon it—the Most High, the merciful one
whose favor rests upon us both.

---

Heather Kaufmann
Writer & Poet

Heather is a New England native, writer, and Anglican ordinand. Her recent work has been published in CRUX, The Windhover, Anglican Theological Review, Pensive, and Ekstasis. She is the 2022 recipient of the Luci Shaw Prize for Creative Writing from Regent College.

Photography by Sahil Sarafudeen