Not Yours, Not Mine Poem by Dennis Ryan

December 2,2003

"A purported first-century inscription naming Jesus may or may not be the real thing...
At issue is a limestone burial box... with the inscription 'James, son of Joseph,
brother of Jesus' that emerged on Israel's antiquities market last year."
- Associated Press, November 24,2003

Can a human soul be confined
to a limestone box, a walnut shell?
James, brother of Jesus, had a body
and a soul like mine, like yours,
though he is not coeval with us.
What are these claims, promises
of charlatans when compared
to living a real life? Which James?
Jesus bore his name as we bear ours,
but we have searched the wrong tombs,
believed in hoaxes for all the wrong reasons,
and oxygen isotope analyses will never produce
a Jesus who willlook me straight in the face,
look at you, and say, "Come, be with me in Paradise."
Whose ossuary?Whose claims?
Certainly not yours, nor mine.