One Easter Not on the Calendar I Woke

One Easter not on the calendar I woke
and foundI had survived ambition.
There was nothing I wanted more of. Time, yes,
if it was given. An unfinished thought
to add a page to, not for the thought's sake,
but for the pleasure of writing the page well,
ifI could write it well. Or if not, for the trying.

My dog, having already outived averages,
sprawled at my feet, hapPy enough to breathe;
sometimes to raise a rabbit ten years dead
and give chase, but wake foolish. When it happens
I give him a dog biscuit. There should be something
after such dreaming. We sit and discuss
how fiercely the world ran the first of us. He knows
there is always a second biscuit, waits for it,

then groans back to his rug and tries again
for what can be raised from sleep. His habit is rabbits,
mine is pages. All night in the tomb
the ghosts of pages walk-white revelations
but when I wake still clutching the one I caught,
it is always blank. I roll the stone away
and try to remember, and cannot, never enough.

But it is enough not to be back in the tomb.
Come Easter one may try for no reason,
for the sake of trying. Because it is Easter.
Because the sound of the old dog grinding biscuits
calls women singing to the well, and camels
from the unspeakable sands, heavy with bales,
And bit by bit the page begins to fill.