From The Front Porch Republic:

A poem by Wendell Berry on this fresco:

For Giannozzo Pucci “Why seek ye the living among the dead?”

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.