Easter Is

an undersong of frogs at the hint of spring;

a quiet eddy in the rapids of decay;

deer running through December bringing fawns of April;

my father reading the morning news at some eternal kitchen table;

life regained,
your friend’s fine-grained wrist, years-free of fresh infliction;

good riddance to the rotten fruit of desired appearance,
at the ripeness of an honest face;

your first time in a movie theatre —
believing in every bit of the magic;

power to stay true to the image that first opened your heart — 
never giving up on your own flourishing;

freedom and light
in the laughter of someone else’s happiness;

the secret leaven in your dough:
yogurt, lemon and maple syrup for the rising;

a pea-green pond at the heart of a park
and a bench built for conversation;

finding a cabin in the trees,
look, there’s honey dripping from the ceiling;

a new game:
queen of hearts trumps king of diamonds;

that boy across town
inviting you over to play — just two days after
you helped gang up on him in the schoolyard —

can you ever forget him?

the One who gave you Easter-eyes:
awake to your ways in ways you couldn’t have been before.

Remember the storm?
Swept up in it. You couldn’t make sense of it.

Killing voices.
Like wolves    in the hills    closing in,
like swirls of wind through limbs of cedar,
like a mucus-green sky thundering the prairies
and towering seas howling over mountains.

And in this pavilion of raging tongues,
where we demanded a victim —
          a Seed of silence,
          something deathless,
          a cave pierced by light and full of daffodils.

Then, tempted to turn in disbelief:
          a spark for the piston of your soul;
          a song you love at hearing its first chord;
                   that boy that could have been you.