But the psyche keeps believing –Sharon Olds
On Easter, I question your existence again.
I want to find you exactly right--
or not find you at all.
Strike one: there’s no sign of you
branded on the toast
I make hastily at 5 am.
I eat quickly, but still I’m late
to meet a car that has already
driven away; strike two.
Strike three is the unexpected loneliness
of climbing a mountain in the dark,
with a group I barely know,
on my first holiday
away from home.
But when we reach the top, perched among
the mountains of Virginia as the sun comes up,
amidst cries from my companions of “He is Risen!”,
I imagine you not as you’re known but
as I want you to be--
in the heart of the boy
who didn't climb here with me
because he slept too late.
I want to find you exactly right--
or not find you at all.
Strike one: there’s no sign of you
branded on the toast
I make hastily at 5 am.
I eat quickly, but still I’m late
to meet a car that has already
driven away; strike two.
Strike three is the unexpected loneliness
of climbing a mountain in the dark,
with a group I barely know,
on my first holiday
away from home.
But when we reach the top, perched among
the mountains of Virginia as the sun comes up,
amidst cries from my companions of “He is Risen!”,
I imagine you not as you’re known but
as I want you to be--
in the heart of the boy
who didn't climb here with me
because he slept too late.
