Seven Stanzas for a Happy Easter

Rocks

 

“Seven Stanzas At Easter” by John Updike

Make no mistake: if he rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart
That—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.

And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.

– John Updike (1932-2009)

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Happy Easter to All!

Published by

Arti

If she’s not birding by the Pond, Arti’s likely watching a movie, reading, or writing a review. Creator of Ripple Effects, bylines in Asian American Press, Vague Visages, Curator Magazine.

13 thoughts on “Seven Stanzas for a Happy Easter”

    1. Jeanie,

      I admit it’s quite new for me too, and am totally floored, for lack of a proper word to express. Happy Easter to you and yours!

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  5. My gosh. I’ve never read this before, and it’s quite something. I don’t know why I’m surprised that it’s Updike, but I am. This one gets printed out, re-read, and studied. Thanks, Arti — and a blessed, continuing Easter season.

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    1. Linda,

      Don’t be alarmed if I tell you Updike used to go to a Lutheran Church. Here you’ll find this site about the background of the “Seven Stanzas” interesting. Check it out.

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