PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

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

they called it, just Easter) was only a miniature

Christmas; in which they invested less planning,

less cash spent, little 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

church-going Christians whatsoever; but were descended,

I believe, from Celtic Christians---nevertheless, seemed to

delight in PASCHA far more than anyone else in my

family:  more eggs, hidden outdoors in faith that the

weather would not become inclement (it never did), a

large basket concealed must more cleverly.

For me, that venue, my grandparents'

north-south small but east-west 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 afternoon 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 PASCHA.  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 Biblical Faith certainly 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.

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During my childhood, say, between 1962 and 1968, PASCHA celebrations became primarily associated in my mind with my paternal Grandparents rural property.   My Grandfather liked to hide eggs and baskets for his grandchildren; by the time I was able to enjoy the experience, my paternal cousins were too old to participate.  My Grandmother loved to prepare the Sunday afternoon dinner, which was followed by a long visit in a relaxed and casually rural atmosphere.  Having both been raised on farms, their residence and the land on which it was situated resembled a farm (several outbuildings, a plank bridge over a small creek's smallest branchlet, a rather large vegetable garden (sometimes, if I recall correctly, with summer corn), and across the plank bridge, a wildflower meadow (of which the northeast corner was occupied by a large rectangular, or oblong, stack of scrap metal that my Grandfather collected), and beyond the meadow, a dark and foreboding walnut woods into which I was not permitted (and was none to be anxious for) entrance.  Their immediate neighbor, northward, who seemed to be very elderly, was a beekeeper; and, when the date of PASCHA was in later spring, the wildflower meadow would be very busy with pollengathering.   PASCHA primarily, and then Thanksgiving and Christmas, are associated, in my mind, with my Grandparents' bucolic residence.

J-9thxciv, an Orthodox Christian

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