See

I know you're not among the dead,
the graves baptized with tears,
for you have risen as you said—
but still I want you here.

I cannot see you in the dawn,
the new-sprung blades of grass:
They bloom and wither and are gone;
as quick as breath they pass.

The songs of birds are not your song,
as sweetly as they sing.
They're silent when the night is long,
but your notes ever ring.

No, I can't hear you in the night
or see you in the day.
I walk by faith and not by sight,
but weary is the way.

Show me, O Lord, your hands and side,
and tell me by my name
there is a place for me inside,
untouched by any shame.

Yes, blest are those who have not seen—
But I still want to see.
And blest are they that can believe.
Lord, help my unbelief.

Doubting Thomas – Google Art Project By Unknown – illuminator – hgFUz6bXaLmUQQ at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22185693

Bright

Bright shines the Easter sun,
now that the clouds have passed,
but we wait for another one,
a morning sure to last:

the cold earth we have closed,
the tamped-down mud of spring
beneath the green of spreading oaks,
uplifting, opening.

The dust God grasped at first 
to shape the forms of men,
when we have all returned to dust,
he'll take in hand again

and shape us, skin by limb
by liver, rib, and thumb,
all shining images of him 
who stand upon his palm,

and treasure every lash
of eyes that see for once
how glory's fadeless lightning flash
in all creation runs.

We'll raise our light-filled hands
and weep our diamond joys
to have each other back again,
when death has been destroyed.

By Prof. Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz 1885, Gera, Germany – http://www.biolib.de, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8778

First the Blade

He said, “This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.”
Mark 4:26-29

First the harrow, then the plow
turns and opens barren fields
where the seeds are trampled down
into wounds the sun will heal.

First the shoot and then the leaf
pierce the earth to catch the rain,
turning all this dead world green,
springing up to life again.

First the sprouting, then the growth
prophesying joy to come,
bounty pledging summer's troth
while the length'ning days run on.

First the blade and then the ear,
then the grain comes, rip'ning gold,
to the harvest of the year,
to the feast so long foretold.

First creation's sixfold day,
then the years' repeating rounds:
Death and life eachother chase
'til the final sun goes down,

then out of the ling'ring gloom
comes the day that will not end.
Seeds sprout up from every tomb.
Winter will not come again.

By User:Bluemoose – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=333105

The Word

In the beginning was the Word,
long before worlds began.
After the end it shall be heard,
spoken aloud again!

Spoken at first, it silent fell
under the reign of death,
now does it ring out as a bell,
sung on undying breath.

What is the word that shapes our sense,
filling the skies above,
echoing in the caverns' depths?
What could it be but love?

What was the silence of the grave
stilling the Word at last?
What could it be but love that gave,
filling death's endless grasp?

Stronger than death is that great love,
deeper than any hell,
truer than stories tell us of,
broader than ocean swells.

Into the silence now it speaks,
thunder with lightning's flame,
filling forever's depths and peaks,
calling us each by name!

Three Marys, by Henry Ossawa Tanner. From the left, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome approaching Jesus’ tomb. Oil on canvas, 42 × 50 in. Fisk University Art Galleries, Nashville, Tennessee. By Henry Ossawa Tanner – https://artandtheology.org/tag/henry-ossawa-tanner/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=132778182

The Ballad of Mary Magdalene

For Easter:

The stone is heavy
and my heart is bound,
but the tomb is empty
and the cloth unwound.

My Lord is taken,
stolen all away.
Oh, where have they laid you?
Where now is your grave?

How shall I hold you,
now that you are gone,
and with myrrh enfold you
for the long sojourn?

I came to offer
all that I had left;
now my heart is nothing
but a deep stone cleft.

Where have you put him?
Let me take him thence.
Give me back his body
that my tears will drench.

But in this garden,
Adam calls me Eve,
and my heart is Eden
when my Lord I see.

A new creation
on this first of days.
Now I see the angels,
and I hear my name.

Local Accession Number: 2012.AAP.130 Title: Rabboni. Creator/Contributor: Bradley, Will, 1868-1962 (artist) Date issued: 1890-1920 (approximate) Physical description: 1 print (poster) : color ; 48 x 36 cm. Summary: Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene following the resurrection. Genre: Posters; Prints Subjects: Biblical events Notes: Title from item. Date note: Date supplied by cataloger. Statement of responsibility: Bradley Collection: American Art Posters 1890-1920 Location: Boston Public Library, Print Department Rights: No known restrictions. By Boston Public Library – https://www.flickr.com/photos/24029425@N06/10559739644/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=107269788

Come All God’s Great Creation

Come, all God's great creation;
come, Adam and come, Eve;
come, Cain and oh, come, Abel:
The light of Christ receive.
For he has opened barrows
and called the bones within.
The fields of hell he harrows
and tramples death and sin.

Come, Moses and Isaiah;
come, Peter and come, John;
come, Job and Jeremiah:
Arise and see the dawn.
Come, all who dwell in shadow;
come, exiled and forlorn
or weeping for your failures:
Come now and greet the morn.

Come, Abraham and Sarah;
come, Jacob and Esau;
come, Rachel and come, Leah:
Each one of you he calls.
Come out of death's dark valley:
He calls as as we are
and leads us into heaven
where we shall shine like stars.

Christ’s Descent into Limbo, woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, c. 1510 – Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography. Volume 1, pp. 200-201 under “Damned Souls”, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13756140

The Shepherd On the Hillside

For Easter season, and Good Shepherd Sunday:

The shepherd on the hillside
climbs down into the glens:
A river runs from his side;
the sun shines through his hands.

For oh, his flock has wandered,
his own have gone astray,
the whole driven asunder,
each one to our own way.

The hills stripped bare of grasses
plunge down into the gloom:
a thousand deep crevasses,
a thousand crowded tombs.

And he will plumb each gravesite
to gather up the bones,
restoring what he made them,
their flesh and blood his own.

There shall be none abandoned,
no tombstone left unturned:
Each debtor shall be ransomed,
each prodigal returned.

In silence we await him,
in separate sorrows lie,
for none in death can praise him
'til dawn shall break on high.

Then oh, the light shall touch us
that's streaming from his hands.
See how the Shepherd loves us
and makes us whole again!

Fifth-century Ravenna mosaic illustrating the concept of The Good Shepherd By Meister des Mausoleums der Galla Placidia in Ravenna – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=155308

Small

Shall heaven, then, be small?
How shall we get inside
if there's no mighty gate and tall,
but just a needle's eye?

A keyhole for a door,
no wider than a nail:
How shall you draw us through it, Lord,
if mercy should not fail?

O you who came unseen,
encelled in Mary's womb,
who shrank all heaven to a gleam
and locked it in a tomb,

will surely open worlds
within the needle's eye
where even fools have lamps that burn
like torches in the night

and where the wayward flock
finds pasture by your stream,
a river pouring form the rock,
an ocean in its seam.

If I am not so small,
yet, Shepherd, give me rest
where many mansions rise up tall,
where once a spear had pierced.

O Sower

So he went in to stay with them.
And it happened that, while he was with them at table,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him,
but he vanished from their sight.
Then they said to each other,
“Were not our hearts burning within us
while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?”
Luke 24:13-35

O Sower, you became the seed
we buried in the dirt.
O Grower, you became the green
that covers all the earth.

For what we buried was transformed
from seed to stalks of wheat.
We gather you as you have grown
to be the bread we eat.

You bear for us a hundred-fold,
good measure, shaken down,
more treasure than our hands can hold
arising form the ground.

We hardly recognize our Lord
arisen from the dead
until we meet him in the Word
and in the broken bread.

In dying and in rising changed,
our brother glorified,
as near to us as bread we take,
as air that gives us life.

The Maker hides in what we made,
the Word within our words,
transforming us as he is changed,
renewing all the world.

The Sower, June 1888, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo. Inspired by Jean-François Millet Van Gogh made several paintings after The Sower by Millet By Vincent van Gogh – own photo in the Kröller-Müller museum, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3815454

Harvest

They plowed your back in furrows;
they dug into your ground,
that seeds might root and burrow
where mercy most abounds.

Your flesh became a garden,
good earth for fallen seeds;
your body bears a harvest,
riches from wheat and weeds.

The reapers come in season,
set sickle to the grain,
and gather even gleanings,
the gifts of sun and rain:

your goodness and your mercy
that you have poured on us,
the hungry and the thirsty.
We flourish in your dust.

Our gifts are of your growing:
We give them back to you
for milling or for sowing,
what you would have them do.

Then gather us, O Jesus,
who blossom in your soil
as fruit for heaven's feasting,
and let us share your joy.

Wheat Field Behind Saint-Paul Hospital with a Reaper By Vincent van Gogh – Google Art & Culture, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=87105273