Our Christian symbols seem, at times, not quite
appropriate to the meaning that they bear.
For instance, take the Easter lily, white
and fragile sign of resurrection. Rare,
its graceful silent trumpet greets the light
of March or April only under glare
of florists’ lamps, unnaturally bright.
You never find them in the open air
before July. A better flower for Easter Day
would be, as every angry gardener knows,
the dandelion, seeded by the gay
abandoned wind that, as it listeth, blows.
No matter how we weed out every stray,
digging as deep, the root still deeper goes.
And when, at last, we quit and go away
the rain falls, and a host of fresh bright foes
stands resurrected, and the garden glows.
