risus paschalis:
the Easter laugh

                 the devil . . . the prowde spirite . . . 
                 cannot endure to be mocked.                                       
                                           —Thomas More

in the beginning

there was laughter 
loud and long 
such were the mornings and evenings 
then on the seventh day 
in His delight of that all is good 
God said amen

for eons 
God has wept among our violences 
because a God who laughs also cries 
yet like the rich young man 
whose face betrayed his shock 
to our utter bewilderment 
amid the grief   the anguish and the violences 
God’s Easter laughter explodes