Poem for Easter
Robert Kelly
All women are beautiful as they rise
exultant from the ruins they make of us. . .
and this woman
who lies back
informing the sheets
has slain me with all day love
and now keeps vigil at the tomb of my desire
from which also she will make me rise
and come before her into Galilee
Rising I fall
and what does her beauty matter
except it is a darkness, sabbath,
where the church
our bodies
everywhere comes together
to kindle one small light
the unyielding, the flesh,
then Resurrection
The radio messiah
I know that my redeemer liveth
and he shall stand in the last days
up from this earth
beyond blasphemy
beyond misunderstanding.
Oh love, this hour will not let me name
They will say I make a sexual mystery of your passion
whereas we know, flesh rises
to apprehend one other mystery,
as the astonished lover’s eyes come open in his coming
to find that he is not alone.
The Goddess of What I Wanted to Say 