Rising

Yesterday was a sunny day. Stems are coming up for my irises. I didn't get any blooms last year. I wonder if I will this year.



In my family, we were mindful that yesterday was my late brother's birthday. He would have been fifty-nine.

I just went hunting for a poem that would be about irises but also consolation in the face of death. I did not find one. Instead, here is an excerpt from I Corinthians 15:

What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be,
but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else.

But God gives it a body as he has determined,
and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.

Not all flesh is the same:
People have one kind of flesh, animals have another,
birds another and fish another.

There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies;
but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind,
and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another.

The sun has one kind of splendor,
the moon another and the stars another;
and star differs from star in splendor.

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead.

The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable;
it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory;
it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;
it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.