It's Tuesday of Easter Week. The back porch is littered with twigs blown to the ground by the more-violent-than-usual spring winds and storms. A carpenter bee is bumbling around the rail, trying to find his way in. The hostas I planted last year are pushing up through the blackish dirt, proudly it seems. "We made it!" they seem to say. I'm wrapped in a soft cotton tablecloth. It was the nearest thing to a blanket and sat, clean and ready, folded on the kitchen table next to my unruly tray of seedlings. Radish, onion, microgreen.
A morning dove is cooing steadfastly and rhythmically from a neighbor's tree. My grass is getting uncomfortably long. I do love and fully appreciate the sense of place I have come to know and enjoy in this house, on this little square patch of land. It doesn't feel like it belongs to someone else, though I'm glad it does when the floor goes soft or the faucet leaks.
Neighborhood dogs do their waking barking, the wind runs through its gears. Accelerating, revving, decelerating. The little birdhouse sways on its low branch above the new growth of Maidenhair fern and Creeping Jenny. How will I keep this feeling all the day through? Remember.
Remember.
"So Jesus said to them, 'The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.'" John 12:35-36
I will remember the prophesies fulfilled, the actions of a man who meant nothing but to lay down his life, the astonishing decisions made and steps taken which led to his very death, the rash and absurd behavior of my brave Jesus, the fear in the unsuspecting hearts of that day's leaders and politicians, the perfume on his body, broken, the plot to snuff out his light, the glory that followed. I will remember.
A cardinal, feathers as red as new blood, is in the maple tree above me.
In case I need reminding.
In case I need reminding.
