Timelessness At Easter Poem by Andrew Apel

What love, what is this God-Man,
Descending into hell
To steal his own back from that thief
Who did not wish them well?

With Abraham's bosom's out of range
Of wash of Styggian sighs,
Now all that rest there will anon
The river life descry.

From eons past and yet to come
The Lamb was always slain.
Foundation to the blood red moon
These three days he has lain

Before the fall, the Christ arose
Alive outside of time,
Baptizing one by one all those who
Of his death imbibe.

One moment shattered shards of time
All pierce eternally
With guilt, loss, shame…
"Eli, Eli, Lama sabachtani! "

Forever blood and water flow,
Atonement, Father's wish,
Foundation to the blood red moon
The Lamb declares finished.

"In Stante pede, " one vast now
All moments still reside,
A canvass spread for First and Last,
Whom time's bent mirror hides.

The saved, in one sense, 'always saved, '
The lost too, ever so.
The 'saved and lost and saved and lost, '
Hardened and inconstant go.

Who knows what mercies or what banes
A righteous judge imparts,
But how if waverers might both
...be saved...and lost...in part?

A child-like soul once sought and found
And entered into grace
Yet child of man, part Dorian,
Meets Maker face to face.

Refining fire and justice right
Blaze from the Bema seat,
As years of dross are seared and lost,
Time's locusts come to feed

And all not chaff that still is left,
The remnant faith held back?
A child of seven, slumped into heaven,
A singed amnesiac.

What creature then would not be glad
For one who dries all tears
Who can restore and give us more
Than selfish, wasted years.

What Easter was and Easter is
And Easter yet may be,
Enshrouded in this westering world
Though blind we yet may see.

And if all guesses miss the mark
And when all wishes fade,
Beside the light revealing
All the spectra ever made,

We shall give thanks that it was not
The way we hoped it would,
Yet shall regret we had not better
Wished and understood.