For Jim, Easter Eve

Formulated by Anne Spencer

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If ever a garden was Gethsemane,

with old tombs set high against

the crumpled olive tree--and lichen,

this, my garden, has been to me.

For such as I none other is so sweet:

Lacking old tombs, here stands my grief,

and certainly its ancient tree.

Peace is here and in every season

a quiet beauty.

The sky falling about me

evenly to the compass . . .

What is sorrow but tenderness now

in this earth-close frame of land and sky

falling constantly into horizons

of east and west, north and south;

what is pain but happiness here

amid these green and wordless patterns,--

indefinite texture of blade and leaf:

Beauty of an old, old tree,

last comfort in Gethsemane.