an easter story

outside, the dead winter lingered

past time:

everything desiccated, browned

and desolate.

a cruel chill shivered everything:

the earth cold, the lilacs unborn.

as if all was in mourning for

the disgraced zealot, now entombed:

the fever eyed peaceful man

who rallied for love and hope and warmth

and kingdoms to come, and

had failed utterly to even save himself

falling savagely hard and horribly alone.

outside the garden appeared scorched:

shriveled, twisted: vegetation skeletons,

their bones shuddering in the breeze,

dry shrunken husks of

the past summer’s bloom.

inside the rocky hillside in the

cavernous hole sealed with the

huge rock he lay dead to the world,

broken and lifeless, his spirit having

chased after his retreating will to live:

a crushed, humiliated and forsaken man.

his death had been a foregone foretold

conclusion. an inevitably tragic fall.

in trembling yet resigned doubt,

he had surrendered to it at every turn,

enduring devastating pain.

but the end brought him no truce. no peace.

instead he was submerged hellishly

into an underworld crossing of cascading

fearsome specters and horrific flashbacks

of gory crucifixions

endlessly and randomly horrific.

buffeted between worlds,

he tossed in an angry rushing river

always capsizing overboard

never even seeing the other side

or touching the murky bottom:

aswirl and awash in black whitewater

smashing against apparitions

jagged like boulders

he was drowning

forever. choking. sinking.

unendingly.

eternally.

then,

all at once

he seemed to be sucked

suddenly

in a backward violent vortex:

pulled in comatose inversion,

rushing in reverse

up into an abrupt crashing

conscious awareness

of unbearable immediate pulsing pain.

the waking itself was

a return to a different agony.

he surfaced gasping

through dust dry mouth

panting from those

grotesque phantasms

only to emerge bone bruised

and entirely aching

into a horrible twilight dungeon:

a grim chamber at once

a genuine nightmare

and also a terribly terrifyingly reality.

the cave air was cold against

his dried bloody, raw skin.

dank and stale and dark but

pierced through with

shafts of startling light rays

penetrating through gaps

around the blocked entrance.

jesus stood up slowly.

woozy and throbbing,

each incremental move

cracking the crusty

membrane all over his body:

standing was an entirely shocking

exercise of sheerly brutal will.

totteringly erect, he stumbled

forward headlong into the

cruel craggy surface of the

monstrous rock at the mouth

of the tomb and was immediately

enraged and hopeless and frightened,

all together at once.

and jesus screamed first noiseless

then roaring, then 

possessed of superhuman

strength, he hurled himself against

the bolder with furious force.

and the stone rumbled backward.

and dust billowed up biting his eyes

as the sun burned and blinded him

and jesus gushed dry salt tears

turning to avoid the searing bright

he blinked and rubbed his face and

threw his arms out to see

the very long shadow

his gaunt naked body cast upon

the ground left sparse and burnt.

and in his stark dark outline on the soil

he saw proof positive that

he was there and that his

body had somehow been

brought back to be

in this sun again.

and in the shade that his body cast

upon the ground, the dirt seemed to

darkly glow, vibrating with his spirit’s

trembling celebration of his own resurrection.

and in jesus’ eclipse of the sun

the penumbra from his interruption

of the light became heated

and his very shadow eradiated the ground

beneath it: and even the air seemed to glow.

the warmth of this son’s silhouette in the soil

pushed hot crocus through

the surface of the humming earth,

forced startled daffodils and amazed tulips

to burst forth in full shocked bloom

and the smell of death surrounding

him was smothered by the cloying odor of

purple hyacinths as robins and catbirds descended

and bees and bugs of every sort began

to buzz electrically.

and he waved his arms broadly

and the greening and flowering began to spread:

squill and pansies and primrose and forsythia

and grasses and budding shrubs and flowering trees

blooming everywhere he looked.

and surrounded by the surging growth

his own broken body began to generate anew.

as he and all around him were born again.

Paul Bukovec 09

Harbinger

angels blew golden trumpets.

lightening split the sky.

as thunder clapped

the boulder rolled back.

And the christ emerged

triumphant from the tomb

though billows of steamy clouds

and fanfares of seraphim

.

and jesus walked out

into the daylight

and heaven and earth

rejoiced.

the messiah turned to

see his shadow.

and mary magdaline said to mary, the mother of james:

“Looks like we’re going to have a long, warm spring.”

PB 09