Poems for Resurrection Coming
by Christina Rossetti, Wendell Berry, and more
Hello, friends. It’s Holy Week (and spring is here!), so I’m here to share a few favorite poems about the holidays as well as the resurrections that come with the renewal of springtime. Happy Easter!
peace,
Ryan
Gethsemane
by Mary Oliver
The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.
Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.
The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.
Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did,
maybe the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move, maybe
the lake far away, where once he walked as on a
blue pavement,
lay still and waited, wild awake.
Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be a part of the story.
— Devotions, 2017
A Better Resurrection
By Christina Rossetti
I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
Reservoir
By Anna A. Friedrich
The swans have mated
again despite the virus—
seven cygnets, fuzzy, golden
huddle in the reservoir
between their cob and pen.
Each in turn dives, apprenticed in
the slow current. Crickets still
chirp along the banks
though it’s almost midday.
Poison ivy sprouts
across Beale’s path and
pollen from white pines dusts
the water’s surface and its debris,
dusts my skin, dusts everything
because this is the season
of determination—
when winter’s layers
peel back like a mask
and hope in every species
flings wide as if irrevocable.
I let their voices accompany
the call of the mourning dove
into my inner ear—
the labyrinth where I’ve
heard, equilibrium
resides.
— The Rabbit Room
A Light exists in Spring
By Emily Dickinson
A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period —-
When March is scarcely here
A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.
It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to me.
Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay —-
A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.
2007, XI
By Wendell Berry
The sounds of engines leave the air.
The Sunday morning silence comes
at last. At last I know the presence
of the world made without hands,
the creatures that have come to be
out of their absence. Calls
of flicker and jay fill the clear
air. Titmice and chickadees feed
among the green and the dying leaves.
Gratitude for the gifts of all the living
and the unliving, gratitude which is
the greatest gift, quietest of all,
passes to me through the trees.
— This Day: Sabbath Poems Collected & New, 1979–2013