Resurrection

Gold Tulip

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

BULB PLANTING TIME
—Edgar Guest

Last night he said the dead were dead
    And scoffed my faith to scorn;
I found him at a tulip bed
    When I passed by at morn.

"O ho!" said I, "the frost is near
    And mist is on the hills,
And yet I find you planting here
    Tulips and daffodils."

"'Tis time to plant them now," he said,
    "If they shall bloom in Spring";
"But every bulb," said I, "seems dead,
    And such an ugly thing."

"The pulse of life I cannot feel,
    The skin is dried and brown.
Now look!" a bulb beneath my heel
    I crushed and trampled down.

In anger then he said to me:
    "You've killed a lovely thing;
A scarlet blossom that would be
    Some morning in the Spring."

"Last night a greater sin was thine,"
    To him I slowly said;
"You trampled on the dead of mine
    And told me they are dead."

_____________________

—Medusa