Easter People

(April 12, 2009)

 

 

We are all an Easter people,
even if not religious in any particular way
or perhaps not at all.

 

 

The Christians tend to celebrate Easter-peopled-ness,
not in any proud or holier-than-thou manner,
but as an optimistic promise
resurrection-claiming
Holy Week unwinding
Lent minimizing
kind of way.

But, we are all an Easter people,
at least we Canadians
save those in Victoria or Point Pelee.

Everywhere else, in this often frigid place,
and some of those Scandinavian places too,
Siberia maybe, and Greenland (ha!),
we and they are Easter people.

We live the life of rebirth,
relife, rekindled in our frozen ground,
crocus, snowdrop, scilla,
poking through winter’s death
every early Spring.

Coincident with Easter,
resurrected even if forgotten bulb,
springs to life
just like our dead God.

And the Easter person?
Gets that little itch,
behind your garden boot,
near your secateur trigger,
off the rake’s handle,
by the soil-spiculed-spade tip,
to go out into your garden of rebirth,
even when the late winter wind says no.

We are an Easter people,
not by choice or faith or creed
but by necessity of digging
tenderly beside that budding bulb
enjoying sun’s lengthening,
bicycling children,
snow’s disappearance.

Death is swallowed up in Spring garden,
rocks rolled away
revealing many gods alive
reborn
resurrected
and poking their holy, haloed greening heads
through the crumbly soil.

We are an Easter people,
hallelujah,
the angel reassures us that life is …
out in the garden,
we are not alone
winter is over
and the crocus
has come again.

excerpt from I am Keats as you are