Resurrection in the neighborhood

I saw resurrection late today

As I walked the dogs

And with every passing block

Got ever more drunk

On the rich purple lilacs

Flinging their perfume into the evening breeze

I saw resurrection on the lawn

Of the home of a man

Who is hated by his neighbors

He never speaks but to complain

About everything and everyone

Of all the tidy streets of curated and tended yards

His is the dry grass, and unkempt

Like a dream conceived, then withered

His the planters barren of any flower

His the tree slowest to bud and leaf in spring

But in that tree today

I—drunk on lilac—saw resurrection.

It was surely not his doing.

Resurrection never is.

God—a bird—had chosen his leafless tree

Out of all the lovely trees

In which to build a perfect nest,

A home in which to raise her young

I would not be surprised

If the grass now begins to green

And flowers blooming appear in the night

And people sit on the empty porch chairs.

Resurrection is like that—once begun

It has a way of catching on

And cannot be stopped;

For that let us be glad.

—April 19, 2017