some poems for Easter, if you will


Easter where It’s Easy

I put things
In small baskets
Left them at
The neighbor’s doors
Came back upstairs
Let oxygen return
To my limbs
(heart disease
not being
good
for nimbleness)
There
That’s Easter done
In some months
No doubt
The Great Pumpkin
Shall return

Oh
Yeah
There’s the part
Where Christ arose
From the grave
Defeating death
Securing life
For everyone
Believing
There’s that
For Easter
Too
Beyond suburbanites
Like me

You know
I could have left things
Only for
The neighbors
Whom I like
Or those
I know at all
But then
I’m uncertain how
That might undermine
The meaning
In a holiday

And then
Christ
Well
That was for everyone
And maybe the whole Earth
And other parts
Unknown
(to us)
I think without
Favorites
Or an agnostic tally

So by comparison
And not so much
Considering
Degree
It might be that
My bits of color and
Artificial grass
Upon which is chocolate
And some crayons
Might be
For everyone
I do not know
As well

And like
The little angel
A small and silly gift
Unto
The Lord
Who lives
So we might live
This Easter
And
Always

Abashed
Evangelism
And how’s that
For perspective
But
I come around
At last
And now quiet
For blue consideration
Of the coffeemaker
And
An hour for
A strange-thinking
Fool


Day One
(for Easter)

And who shall
Shoot whom today
Where shall
A missile
Go

Who shall be dispossessed
Of home
And anything
Of safety
While working toward that
Anyway
For family

The causes should be
Bad enough
Old age
Or diseases
Even
Accidents
That happen

But the cruelty
Of human will
At play
Rendering
And rending
Oh
So much
Of us
And Earth
As if we needed reasons
For our mourning

And Christ comes down
From the cross
To weep with us
To say
Please
I have done this for you
Can you not live
Can you not like life
Enough
To act
So much more
Than bullets
Blades
And missiles

His arms out wide
Again
Over a scorched
And parching Earth
Where the graves
Know prosperity
And some
Human
Secret
Coffers

He brings them down
To embrace again
With all
The Marys there
To help
And the
Beloved
Of disciples

The art of love
Nestled now
In quiet museums
But take it outside
Please
Is his
Command
Though it sound like pleas
Spoken through blood
Toward a forsaking
God

Who never left
Who left a story
And now leaves the truth
In resurrection
For
We could all do better
We could all
Do life
And more
Would come from heaven
Toward the end
Though without guarantee
In worldly terms
(so much of Spirit
and of doctrine
frankly
invisible)
To do this
Anyway
Unwarranted
Without a warranty
Nothing like safety
Like a trophy
On a shelf

The shelf come down
Eventually
Within the ambition of
Another generation

Which means
Our reasons might
Be unseen
Too
To do them
Anyway
Do life
Do love


There

I should be at church
But I slept in
Which is itself
A kind of miracle
At least
A gift

Besides
I don’t know a church
And my hair’s too short
And I’m still
Too tired

My coffee’s warm
I need some
More
The blue light calls
As if I were
At K-Mart

There

My distractions call
And I know it’s Easter
Sunday
And that’s something
Not enough
For God
I guess
And any
Who might miss me
There

Though by my experience
There
It might seem that absence
For discretion
Rather than outright scorn
Regrets all around
Might be
Valor’s better
Way

Which is to say
That I don’t like it there
So much
They don’t like
Me
And so it’s safer here
With blue light
And more coffee
And I could
Turn on something
For a church

On Easter morn


First Family

And what happened
By that morning
When the Marys
John
Arrived

By then
There had been moments
First and only
When the Earth’s guards fell away
The stone fell
From its post
And
Inside
Well
Inside

Where we had thought
Had desert rot might happen
And instead
The area inside
Must have broke apart
For miracle
And cleanliness
(for our
suburbanite
concerns)

Was there a flash
A hidden rumble
While hell fell apart
So great
Was the escape

Were there explosions
Through the night
Of grace
And miracle
Surprise
Even
That so much should happen
Well
After three days before
When all was terrible
In loss
Of death
And cause
And hope

How did heaven and Earth
Play
In that place
That spot
Of resurrection
Of the spirit
And the body
So that the body
Left
Leaving graveclothes
Leaving everything
Of death
Behind
And gone

No death
No need for herbs
Though love had brought them there
And as it
Turns out
Witnesses
Instead
To absences
And then some words
Surprising
And portentous
To all human ears
For history

How love
Abounded
How round
And I imagine
They could play
Around the empty grave
On that first day
In the morning
When all woes
Were overtaken
By surprise

And is
Prophecy worked out
Always
A surprise

A minute
Of an hour
Of joy
And then
The world
Must know
And ready for
Rise and fall
Of faith
By evidence
Of testimony

Then appearance
More meals
Together
Then a risen Lord
For good
‘Til everything
That’s good
Returns


C L Couch


Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash