Poetry

Paul Willis

We are on our way home

from Good Friday service.

It is dark. It is silent.

"Sunday," says Hanna,

"Jesus will be rosing

from the dead."

Wooden Cross

Rose

It must have been like that.

A white blossom, or maybe

a red one, pulsing

from the floor of the tomb, reaching

round the Easter stone

and levering it aside

with pliant thorns.

The soldiers overcome

with the fragrance,

and Mary at sunrise

mistaking the dawndewed

Rose of Sharon

for the untameable Gardener.

Paul Willis is professor of English at Westmont College.