Easter

Holiest of days,
what smooth thing do you have for me?
Drop it in my hand
and make it heavy as stone,
something I can hold and show to others:
Look, here it is, as clear
as the nose on your face!
The rock, which you thought
inanimate, lives! It has sprung
legs and arms like a prehistoric
bug, it is crawling up my arm--
see? No, I don't want

some cheap trick. What I want
is real resurrection, more real
than the bulb, flaking with skin,
that I plunge into cold soil.
I want more than the sky
every morning, dark with gloom
or bright with sun--
I want more than my sister's face
greying with illness, more even
than her faith which fills me
with weak glow,
like a lamp switched
on at twilight. I want

hands on my shoulders
while dew wets my feet,
a gardener who sets
his trowel into the soil, digs,
and pulls forth singing children!

Mud falls from their knees
as they pound the dirt with their feet--
Didn't you always know
it was real? they cry,
and their breath is warm, hotter
than the sun that fills flowering redbuds,
lilacs and forsythia.
Their laughter pools in tulips,
spills over us all,
even inside of us
where there is no more winter
or shadows, only
the weight of loved things.