Claude McKay: “And some called it the Resurrection flower…”
Posted: April 8, 2012 Filed under: Claude McKay, English Comments Off on Claude McKay: “And some called it the Resurrection flower…”
Claude McKay (Jamaican-American poet, 1889-1948)
“The Easter Flower”
Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly
My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground,
Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily
Soft-scented in the air for yards around;
*
Alone, without a hint of guardian leaf!
Just like a fragile bell of silver rime,
It burst the tomb for freedom sweet and brief
In the young pregnant year at Eastertime;
*
And many thought it was a sacred sign,
And some called it the Resurrection flower;
And I – a pagan – worshipped at its shrine,
Yielding my heart unto its perfumed power.
Zócalo Poets 