Early in the Year by My Friends Gift – Wendell Berry

Early in the year by my friend’s gift I saw at Sansepolcro Piero’s vision:
The soldiers who guard the dead from the living themselves become as dead men,
one tumbling dazedly backward.
Awake, his wounds bleeding still,
his foot upon the tomb,
Christ who bore our life to its most wretched end,
having thrust off like a blanket the heavy lid, stands.

But for his face and countenance I have found no words:
powerful beyond life and death,
seeing beyond sight or light,
beyond all triumph serene.
All this Piero saw.

And we who were sleeping,
seeking the dead among the dead,
dare to be awake.

We who see see we are forever seen,
by sight have been forever changed.
The morning at last
has come.
The trees, once bare, are green.