Easter has always been my least favorite holiday. Easter Sunday meant clothes more than anything else. New dress. Hat. Gloves. Shoes. Being eyed by everyone in the congregation. Or feeling that way. When I married, I spent Easter with my husband's parents, and going to church on Easter Sunday was de rigeur. The sermon was usually the same one I had heard a year or two before, and the preacher had to make the point that the empty tomb proved Christianity superior to every other religion. We could point to that tomb with pride. Sometimes he quoted Gandhi on the death of his wife, implying that the great man did not believe in the afterlife. Gotcha! Or he would pull out some other detail from another religion, usually distorted or misinterpreted, to show its inability to guarantee the resurrection of the body. Gotcha again! I sat through these sermons staring out the windows, watching the dogwoods sway in the breeze, waiting for the service to be over.
After the last Easter spent with my in-laws, we drove back home through the Smoky Mountains. The phacelia and trillium were blooming, the road spiraling through the awakening landscape like a journey into paradise, an earthly paradise. Here is the poem that grew out of that drive.
Easter Morning on the Hairpin Curve
Smoky Mountains
Is it water or
phacelia that tumbles
down the banks,
overflowing its rocky
creel, water
or trillium,
merging this morning
in one brim-
ful flagrant
resounding of
yes, She lives,
does the Earth,
our longsuffering
handmaiden raising
up dipper
by dipper the day
for us out of
her dark womb.
(first published in Kakalak)
6 comments:
There's always been something beyond the sermons for me at Easter time, something the world is yearning to say, with the sap rising and the buds straining to open. Your poem reaches that deep, quiet place. Thank you for sharing it. Blessings to you on this Good Friday.
Whenever people ask me what are you doing for Easter I just smile and say "oh not much." So, I really know what you mean about Easter being your least favorite. I suffered through many, many years of sermons on Easter and trite allusions to empty graves and all that. Your poem is just wonderful, I've never really thought the earth being so alive during this time, the earth has risen from the grave of winter! Thank you for posting this.
Perfect -- the Earth's renewal is cause enough for rejoicing and the heavy rain we're getting just now is like balm pouring down.
Thank you, Ann. It's good to see you on the blog this morning. And Mindy, always good to have you visit. Yes, Vicki, we are getting heavy rain right now, but hail is threatened this afternoon and we fear for our little plants out in the garden. The cabbage and broccoli are doing so well that we want to protect them, but how? Maybe the hail will pass us by. I enjoyed looking at your garden photos, by the way, and I love the way you have your ridges set up.
K.
Kay, I love this poem Easter Morning on the Hairpin Curve. Seems like I saw in somewhere on my desk recently. (smile) I've read it over and over during the last few days. (smile)
Kay, this poem touches my favorite time of year. The early spring of brave buds and early blooms. Lovely.
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