Blessings these spring days, lovelies!
My Kids Ask Me What We are Doing for Easter
They ask in that middle school voice
which drips with disappointment and challenge,
the same tone they use to inquire what is for dinner,
when they see I am cutting vegetables.
I lure them with honey baked ham and sweet breads,
(which my vegan teen won’t touch).
I bribe them to hunt for eggs by stuffing
plastic ones with dollars and sour gummy worms.
I hate that holidays are demarcated
most notably by a collection of flotsam
I have accumulated at the craft store.
But it is so, I hang wreaths of
styrofoam pastel eggs,
place resin molds of rabbits
flocked with green on tabletops.
When they were younger the Paas dye kits
with their tablets of compressed color were enough,
the plunk in a cup with a tablespoon of vinegar
and the little bubbles was a party,
guaranteed hours at the kitchen counter dipping and praising.
I want it to be two centuries ago
when we gathered in the town square
for a fertility feast, the baker has
provided hot cross buns,
we will give them to our daughters
and also to our sons.
I want it to be two millennium ago
and we are visiting the grave of Jesus,
finding him not stone cold but basking in sunlight.
Come children, lay down your cell phones,
remember when you were toddlers
and danced like daffodils in spring breezes.
Let’s roll the boulder from our tombs,
let’s rise from the dead like Christos.
We can plait Eostre’s golden hair,
help me weave baskets from rushes
to float our burdens upon.
All this and more is happening this Easter.
Let’s do what the maple buds and shoots in soil,
the hatchlings and frogs are doing,
somewhere, somehow let's rejoice, children, rejoice!