PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

In my parents' holiday behavior, Holy PASCHA (or, as

they called it, just Easter) was only a miniature

Christmas; in which they invested less planning,

less cash outlat, ittle decorative effort (except for

coloring the eggs, on the Saturday before);

no concern, or even acknowledgement of the

spiritual meaning.  My grandparents---who were

not active Christians; but descended from

sectarian Christians---nevertheless, seemed to

delight far more in Easter than anyone else in my

family:  more eggs, hidden outdoors in faith that the

weather would become inclement (it never did), a

large easter basket concealed must more cleverly.

For me, that venue, my grandparents'

horizontally small but vertically huge property

always, upon every visit I made---even in the

most snowbound part of winter---alluded to PASCHA

(despite worldly interferences against which

it was a welcome retreat); sometimes, just a

subtle whisper but most definitely audible to

my soul.  Even then, blue was my favorite color; the

robin's egg blue eggs were my favorites to find, and

I always asked that they be the last to be peeled and

consumed at the Paschal dinner.  In my fifth or sixth

year, I discovered that the concrete foundation slab, on which

my grandparents' small cottage stood, was painted

robin's egg blue---visible on the Southeast corner where, at

almost always through spring, summer, and autumn, the

grass somehow drew back as if intenting to disclose this

aspect---in order to provide me yet one more sense of

awe, and the supremest of all the awes available to me at

my Grandparents' house.  My grandfather passed away in

nineteen sixty-nine, approximately two weeks before that

year's Easter.  My grandmother moved away, and sold the

whole property, to move in with her caregivers, in

nineteen seventy-seven, the weekend after

Thanksgiving; but I have still preserved the

memory of it---and, therefore, the last remains of its

presence---across my poetry.  And if that great

Christian actor, Peter Cushing, was correct in his

theology of Heaven, my grandparents' bucolically

poetic---and poetically spiritual---property will be

restored in Heaven; because, as Cushing fervently

believed (and, as the Scriptural Christian Faith teaches),

God loves us so intensely and fervently that we cannot

begin to imagine a way to fully describe it; and, in

His infinite Love for us, even the smallest joys will

become major aspects of our Heavenly, and blessedly

eternal, existence.  Therefore, I believe most

certainly that my grandparents' home and the

beautiful acreage around it has not been taken over (as

upon this earth now)---by the shadowed walnut woods and

its attendant weed patch, which is now a weedy,

almost jungle-like, infestation; and the four buildings (the

residential cottage, the outhouse, the toolshed workshop, and---

oldest of the four---called Suzie's cottage;

although no one, then, remembered Suzie) having been

pulled down for subsequent ownership reasons

I cannot comprehend and certainly do not applaud---but

will be wholly, completely, and perfectly (to every detail,

especially those details I cherish most) restored; no longer

just a dying old man's memory, but a reality (in the

three earthly dimensions and, I am sure, at least

several theological dimensions) as an expression of the

Holy, Almighty and Immortal Triune God's Love,

personalized for me, even such as me, for whom,

despite my unworthiness, the Son of God, Jesus the

Christ, Messiah, Savior, Redeemer, did not hesitate to die.

Starward