Monday, April 5, 2010

If there is Easter grass on the carpet, it is still Eastertime!

I heard this poem at church yesterday and loved it! (Plus a thank you to my children for making my day so special.)


Seven Stanzas at Easter
by John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.


4 comments:

Heather said...

Mother and daughter must think alike. I have yellow tulips on my header, and I posted this poem.

It was a lovely Easter yesterday (despite the snow). I really enjoyed the service too, and I love this poem.

Chelsea said...

thankyou for sharing, i love the poem!

Cheryl said...

Easter has always been my favorite holiday. I love all that it means and the amazing hope that comes from knowing our Savior died and was truly resurrected. Thanks for the tulips!

jessica&john.com said...

I love this poem too. I bet it was even more touching over the pulpit. I would love to be able to write something so powerful.