[Carol Taylor]

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Easter Morning
for René Girard

Quick as dawn, the dogwoods have raised
improbable awnings, christened with rain.
Thrusts of witch-hazel, stands of rue,
and there—there, across the stream,
in the shade of those dark-lichened rocks—
white phlox and geranium strain
to reach the angled light. One bright
morning, a clean April day,
amazes familiar paths with a green
tangle and baizes the winter’s stain.

Faster each Easter, my daughter flies
past tumbled rocks where brambles grow.
The bloodroots flower near her feet
as delicate as bible leaves,
and slow, persistent ivy kindles
on old trees. The year will know
a fresh redemption: burning green,
the green trees glow—till ash
and thorn fall back to sleep
in counterpanes of barren snow.

Beneath such trees, with hand and knife,
cold priests once tried to mend the leaf—
the root, the branch: these deadened woods
that need fresh life to grow.
A lamb, a child: the winter’s snow
would melt in their warm blood—and grief
by grief, pain revenged by pain,
we paid the sacrificial debt
that swells with each repaying death.
And where shall we look for love’s relief?

My daughter runs by the brief flowers:
touch-me-nots among the stones,
bluebells and sorrels, solomon’s seal.
Every spring pretends a pity
for all the pretty, short-lived things.
Last night I watched the fire zones,
the sudden plumes of tracer rounds:
blooms of war on the TV news.
And now in these green woods I see
the graves of gods and a grove of bones.

History labors, a worn machine
sick with torsion, ill-meshed,
and every repair of an old fault
ruptures something new. The sacred
knife and hands are gone from the woods,
but winter’s blood still springs refreshed
and an altered world still summons death.
As long as we endure ourselves,
innocence will come to grief
and mercy must remain unfleshed.

The parish bells begin their carols,
down through the trees like flourished prayer
the Easter call resounding. Time
reaches forward, hungry for winter,
and what will save my daughter when even
hope is caught in the ancient snare?
A cold fear waits—till all that had fallen,
all that was lost, rudely broken,
crossed in love, comes rising, rising,
on the breath of the new spring air.</td></tr></table></td></tr></table>

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It's good to see a poem done in accentual meter, which is not used often enough! And this one is beautifully done, musical, with the lines linked together by an ear-delighting array of sound devices, including alliteration, vowel-rhymes, and perfect rhyme both at the ends and within the lines.

The stanzas progress from observation of nature in stanza one to religious imagery and the introduction of the young daughter in stanza two, to such unexpected but aptly-introduced themes in successive stanzas as human sacrifice, the need for some payment of the debt incurred by sinning man, the fragility of life, the current war, daily danger, the hunger for redemption and the need for change and renewal. Finally, in the triumphal final stanza, hope enters with the tolling of the Easter bells, and a recognition of hope itself--the "rising, rising" of hope--not to obliterate the fear, but to signal a way beyond it.

The immediacy of this poem, a poem that could easily have become impersonal philosophy, comes from the contained passion of the language, the powerful imagery, and the use of the daughter--the living child persuasively suggested in motion--to represent what we love most and fear for most acutely. The reader need not be religious to grasp, and respond to, what this poem is singing.

~Rhina

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[Janet Kenny]

I remember this beautiful poem very well.

There is something in me that refuses to accept the price asked here but I absolutely respond to the language and the humanity of the poem.
I love the elegance and simplicity of the writing., including the paced introduction of images that support the flow of the ideas and sustain the pulsing sense of the natural world.
A haunting and disturbing poem.
Janet

[David Anthony]

I love the simple and sustained lyricism in this, and the absolute sincerity.

[oliver murray]

I also remember this beautiful poem well and agree it it both lyrical and sincere. What it is being sincere about I am not quite certain, and I am not sure I would be in agreement if I was, but this does not stop me from admiring the poem very much.

[wendy v]

I too think this is beautiful writing, but share the 'resistance' to certain aspects, particularly I think with passages like 'Every spring pretends a pity/
for all the pretty, short-lived things' and 'As long as we endure ourselves,/innocence will come to grief'.Just breathtaking, though, the language and imagery here, and that rising, rising note at the close.

wendy

[nyctom]

.

[This message has been edited by nyctom (edited December 07, 2004).]

[Margaret Moore]

What the others say. Powerful and vivid.

One micro-nit. Why not 'pain avenged by pain'? Could this be a typo? I've never before encountered the combo 'revenged by'.

Margaret.

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Wow.

The masterful touches start and do not stop with this poem: the use of "baizes" as a verb, the careful symbolism of the plants as the poem progresses, the progression of thoughts both idly and logically throughout until the culmination.

This is one to keep and study, and more than that, treasure.

Bravo.

[Maggie Porter]

Ah, the importance of reading beyond the gooserot. The lichen images in the beginning almost killed it in childbirth. Ah, but to continue to read the thing.

Brilliant. Time. Lichen as parody (love it!). Edit:
Or maybe, irony.

This poem is why I continue to labor towards understanding the metrical standard held to so tightly by so many. The poet is demonstrating CRAFT. And that is no small thing.



[This message has been edited by Maggie Porter (edited December 05, 2004).]