Yesterday was bleak,
even bleaker than the day before
precisely because it was the day after.
And dreary days of loneliness loomed ahead of us.
Yesterday was bloated with grief,
An abscess in the soul
distended by the swelling pus of guilt.
And we wept for fear
and burrowed into our loneliness
and binged on a bottle of bitter.
But today,
today,
today is different.
Gone is the grief.
Gone, the guilt!
Very gone of very gone.
Today is a day to gather gladness from the sky,
To suck the sunlight like an iris,
And blush boldly with the tulips.
Today is a day to stretch after a long dark winter,
like the dogwood and the shy chinaberry.
Today is a day to take our shoes off
and lie down in the grass
or stroll barefoot amongst the apple blossoms
hatching all along the branches.
Or rub the length of our backs like a bear
On the bark of a towering Tamarack.
Today is a day to say thanks
for wren, and thrush, and bold sir robin,
the duke of dirt,
who struts across the lawn
and thrusts out his chest.
Today is a day to say thanks
and feel the smallness of that word
under the bigness of the broadening sky.
Today is a day to stuff our mouths with bread
and follow it with wine
because today,
today,
today is the beginning of all our tomorrows.
Gone, the guilt.
Dear God, the guilt is gone!
And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
open before us like the petals of a flower
that brightens every hour
beneath the Son’s broad, bright, beams.
Today the Son is up and doing with unshod feet
and soil in his fingernails,
and I promise
because he promised
that Golgotha will be a garden,
because today,
today,
today is Easter morn!
Well done. Stunning. Thank you for helping me to remember today. Makes me want to hang out with you.