SLAM!

Easter Rebellion

On the table, between them, sat the Easter basket, trimmed
with a yellow velveteen ribbon and a perfect, hand-fashioned bow.
It was filled to the brim with pleasing painted eggs and sunshine,
morning breath and springtime, and radiated April cool promise.

Her eyes were red from weeping, and his were weary
from studying fanciful patterns and mythic blueprints.
The click of her pink fingernails on the tabletop, and the
rhythmic thump of his socked feet on the tile had cadence;
A battle hymn for two sides bent on rebellion.

Forward.

Words hung in the air, flapping like tattered, faded flags,
slowly wilting and withering as the wind began to die.
Somewhere there was the haunting coo of a mourning dove,
and the bleating of the sheep on their way to Sunday mass.

He looked at the soft and creamy colours in the basket, thinking
of ways to pump life into a battered soul, raising it from death.
She looked at him with accusation and in her mind danced visions
of crucifixions and hammerings to the wall.

March.

Though weak and bleary they launched their assaults;
scrambling and peppering until more cracks began to show.
The shelling took it’s pause for laboured breath and bleeding tears,
and this strange rising slowed to stop before it had ever really begun.

They both tasted the decay knowing something true had died,
so they bowed their heads low, grieving the demise of belief.
An oath in white means nothing if there is nothing to put faith in;
a war is fought in vain when neither side presumes to care.

This day was born for fervent prayer and gleaming white-robed glory
but the air was filled with the holy smoke of disenchantment and defeat.
With nothing left to fight for, the loss of blood seems hardly
worth it. A broken soul can’t levitate a dream to halcyon skies.

The smell of roasted lamb and minted sauce did stir his hunger, and
notions of foil-wrapped chocolate pulled her thoughts out of the mud.
Tonight they’d call a cease-fire and give little credence to scripture.
No prayer could bring to life that which had died in their crusade.

On the table the basket rested still and sound despite the skirmish.
The lovely ornate eggs huddled close, shining bright.
Funny how their shells are thought fragile, fine and flimsy,
yet here they rest without fracture or fissure,
the strongest survivors of this pure massacre.

Whole.

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