Northeast

Make no mistake: If He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cell's dissolution did not reverse,
The molecules reknit, the amino
acids rekindle,
the church will fall. . . .

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
Making of the event a parable, a sign
painted in the faded credulity of
earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day. . . .

(From John Updike's "Seven Stanzas at Easter.")