PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

That Easter weekend was unusually warm.
My Grandfather had risen early to hide
the dyed and joyously decorated eggs
just before the first light of dawn,
the same time that Jesus. arisen, proclaimed His
triumph over sin, and death, and the grave.
We arrived later that afternoon;
my cousins from Preble County were present
(and this, for the last time; although I do not know)---
too adolescent to search for Easter eggs;
and too aloof from the adopted child
who did not share the same bloodline with them.
My Grandparents made no such distinction---
then, or before or after; I was their youngest grandchild.
From large families themselves, large families on farms,
their implicit understanding of grandparenting
was very refined and very generous,
despite the restrictions of a genteel poverty
that had harassed them since the "Great" Depression.
As fast as my spindly and awkward legs could move me,
I darted here and there to gather the hidden eggs---
my favorites being the robin's egg blue
which also was the color of their cottage's foundation slab,
just barely visible beneath the long grass at its edges.
No further south than the neighboring "Dutchman's" massive hedge;
no further west than the this side of the shallow creek
that bisected their property into almost equal halves;
no further north than the storage buildings across from the cottage;
no further east than the pump box my Grandfather had installed:
in this, a large area for a child of my age,
my Grandfather, builder of rural bridges over culverts and streams,
had cleverly concealed a multitude of eggs high and low.
The very elaborate basket they had purchased
was hidden high in the apple tree very near the creek's edge;
and that would the climax and conclusion of my eager search;
after which Grandma would set out lunch---
baked ham, all manner of vegetables, and
(always at Thanksgivings and Easters) small olives,
which I, unaccustomed to such delicacies, devoured.
One, and only one egg, had fallen, or rolled,
from where my Grandfather had concealed it;
and, in the unseasonal temperature, it began to spoil at once.
No one called it a "bad egg,"
or spoke of it as a metaphor of sin and damnation.
(My Grandfather's grandfather, a preacher of hellfire,
so much so that no local church would employ him,
was long dead, long ignored, and viscerally forgotten.)
My Grandfather, himself the son of a former prostitute's daughter,
merely gathered the spoiled egg together,
and tossed it into the shallow, narrow creek's flow
where crawdads, tadpoles, insects and sweeping birds
would soon have consumed it, perhaps even the dyed shell.
The egg was only an egg that had spoiled;
not used by some fanatic attempt with hopes to impede
the outreach of Christ's Gospel to those without saving faith.

Starward

[*/+/^]