Tag: Easter

Jesus, you are not a building

~ Pleasant Street ~ 23 Comments

A good Friday psalm

You are not a building.
You are not songs, millennia old.
I am yours and you are mine
and that is my joy

Please don’t let me take that for granted
Or stop thanking you–
for you are not a building
or angry mobs, but you are there

You are not this hate-filled debate
but you see it–hear it–and know
what is true–not this circular argument
that breaks our hearts

You are not my race.
You are not my gender.
You are not my house.
But my body is your temple

I beg you to open my eyes
so I see all of the truth.
Is it enough to know that I need you?
I know myself

I am no better or worse
than anyone on my screen, or
on my street, or in that building
that you are not

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I took the Christmas tree down

~ Pleasant Street ~ 2 Comments

I am sharing this out of season, an Easter poem I wrote a few years ago, as we were adjusting to our empty nest.

I wanted to share it with Harry Miller at Yellow Crane in the Rain. You should visit his blog. This is one of my favourite posts:
In Situ

Giving up pie for lent

~ Pleasant Street ~ 11 Comments

What are we reduced to
when we do not want to hear
what another voice is telling us

Who are we become if
we could tear down others without cause
greater than boredom

Our hearts
are malleable and weather-proof
however they might melt under fire

Though no one can see the bruises
of everyday pummeling
from jabs of our closest
and most relied upon

I took the Christmas tree down

~ Pleasant Street ~ 1 Comment

on Holy Thursday, because I promised it would not be there
to look at on Easter morning. Dinner, notwithstanding
the ham and sweet potatoes would resemble our Christmas dinner
our eyes on the lovely tree in all its glory
the ornaments shiny and calling out to us, rejoice-celebrate-

Though now they mock us-drinking a toast to mothers deceased, and
burn the roast and put out the candles, but they have no right
to judge us, those self-serving props of Santa Claus
on that holiest of holy days to look at our slips and slights, and
tell the neighbors, look–their lights are up past epiphany