Good Friday and Rising

Easter poem

Good Friday and Rising

Nightdark mixed with gravity
yet this black sky
rises higher
than any remembered light.

    See there — and there?
    Huge shovelfuls of black
    thrown up against
    the heavens like questions.

Who buried the sunlight?
What is this cup
of dark
turned earth-side down?

    God Almighty
    with his eyes shut?
    Smoke from a record-breaking
    burnt sacrifice?

Suppose this darkness were
all shadow, past and future,
shoved into
one three-hour space.

    Suppose — for this one night —
    a sky made of mystery.
    Suppose a few million stars
    sprinkled like clues.

—Barbara Seaman