Easter: 2012

Easter is the loneliest day
for one unwilling to fall silent
when those he loves rejoice,
for one unable to stop the songs
that rise unbeckoned in his throat,
unable to squash hope
or make the tearful decades
of yearning cease their endless murmur,
for one unable to relinquish
this love-affair with living a graceful life,
unwilling to stop wrestling with God
until he has been blessed or crippled forever,
or unwilling to give up this
sweet nonsense
that we can be self-forgetful,
can spit up
our knowledge of right and wrong
and return to Eden,
children again,
full of harmony and wonder,
naked and unaware,
dreaming a beautiful dream
that death is just
a little sleep,
a little slumber,
the briefest interlude
from which we shall awaken
if (and only if)
the intellect will agree
to that one
proposition.

It is the loneliest day
for him,
that man down in the shadows,
groping in the failing light
for breadcrumbs
others have eaten,
trying to follow a tenuous logic
that says one witness is really
five-hundred-and-one,
that considers willingness to die
and sincerity of conviction
reliable markers of truth
(never mind
madmen flying airplanes
into buildings),
that confuses convention
with veracity,
that sees remarkable congruity
in divergent accounts,
that says
we know this claim is true
because it says it is.

Pity him every day
but on Easter Sunday
most of all,
this weeping Thomas,
this outcast on his knees
who prays with the Psalmist,

Oh silent God
what lips can sing your praises
from the grave?
What hands can clap
or what feet
can dance before you
in the land of the dead,
the land to which all must go,
the land to which
a hundred billion souls
have already gone
from this singular planet circling a star
that is one of a hundred billion stars
in our galaxy
that is one of a hundred billion galaxies
flung across the cold reaches of the universe?

Oh my soul,
be brave.
Be blessing.
Be hope.
Be kindness.
Be love.
Be a gentle beacon
and graceful friend
to your mate
and to your child
and to the souls that share this precious moment,
this briefest speck
in the infinite arc of time.

Be courageous
no matter how the tale ends,
whether all comes to the nothing
that the universe bespeaks
or whether the stones roll
away from our tombs
and we stagger
from the dust
in joyful surprise
back into life,
into Eden,
into the twinkling gaze
and bemused laughter
and tender hands
of our mischievous author.