The garden blossomed with piquant myrrh
blown from the underworld’s snapping jaws
like dawn’s gravity had pulled aside the stone
to release the fragrant ghosts of generations

blown from the underworld’s snapping jaws,
the confetti of condemnation’s complete
disintegration. Hell’s gates hung on their hinges

where dawn’s gravity had pulled aside the stone
that held them fast. She smelled more myrrh then
when He spoke her name, when He spoke

to release the fragrant ghosts of generations
past and yet to come, when He spoke peace
and cast her clinging arms around the Father.

This passage from John 20 is one of my favorites in the entire Bible.

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.

John 20:11–18 (ESV)

Happy Easter! He is risen.

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