I have not reached Easter

No ,

I have not reached Easter

and this might be the year when

there is no resurrection,

when the long darkness of Friday

stretches

without a glimmer

into Sunday morning.

This year you might come to the tomb

and find only a stench.

You cannot deny it.

Death without despair

is merely playing with comforting words

-   a cheated game with a fixed end.

          See ,

I have not reached Easter.

Please do not dig in my bare earth.

Even if somewhere the new shoots grow

you will surely destroy them

with your indiscriminate plough

and your boots so heavy with hope

and your hands, all unknowing,

tearing the nurturing folds of mud

from the seeds

ripping them from the protective embrace of death.

          No ,

I have not reached Easter

and this might be the year when

there is no resurrection.

I would rather

- please let me –

lie in the ground and rot and wait for the angels.

  

Maundy Thursday 93