The Easter Lily

Choked on a crumbling dirt bank eroded
Where the soil spoiled roots with the corroded
Acrid tang of weeping and haunting fears:
Fields sown with the salt of sorrowful tears
Made bitter through obdurate, haughty pride,
Withered by a dry desert wind that sighed
Over her wilting leaves and wrinkled bud.
Growing out of leanness, longing for mud
Soaked and caked about her stem to flourish
With nearby water flowing to nourish,
Moisten, and plump her tender wounded parts
Torn and broken by those deceitful arts
Which beguiled her to stray on wayward paths
And caused her to be worthy of greater wraths.
When the dews the hopeful renewal of spring
Globed in droplets which about her would cling,
Then her leaves greened full; her flower bloomed white
With deep crimson blotches that stained to blight
The pure face of ivory beauty fair
When all should be cast off, ev’ry thought or care.
The sky darkened with thunderheads frightful
Promising condensed knowledge insightful,
And when they broke, atonement downward showered
Causing abundant grace to be what flowered
Cleansing the bloody stains that dyed her petals,
Trickling down stem to damp dust that settles.
A trowel pierced the earth, pain cut her roots.
Lifting her from that soil of ashy soots
She clung to with musty deep-branching toes,
A Grower gathered and sheltered her from woes,
Potting and pruning, her growth to restore,
Of merciful drizzles she’ll never lack more.
For aside was she set for rows of plenty good
Where other blossoms bloom near there she stood;
The Planter’s appointed planting from all time
An anointed tilling by choice sublime
All plotted and ordered by His purpose set
And confirmed at Passover with payment met;
Of richer compost, the Lamb’s Blood, none has known
For all that it nourishes none will disown.

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Gareth Oakes, a native of Minnesota, lives in Oregon. He is an MFA student.