"the green of Jesus"

Today is Easter.

I've baked some cakes and made some waffles and orchestrated a brunch for some friends and drunk some champagne and laughed with Carl and Oliver and cleaned up the mess and enjoyed the impossible green of the garden  and a few malted milk balls, speckled like bird eggs and now I lie on the couch and finish reading Night by Elie Wiesel and ponder the meaning of all things, things of meaning I can not begin to understand. There's always a beginning to meaning and an end to what is meaningless.

Easter another word for dawn.

Here are two Easterish poems that I love by two poets whom I love:

The Palm at the End of the Mind

After fulfilling everything
one two three he came back again
free, no more prophecy requiring
that he enter the city just this way,
no more set-up treacheries.
It was the day after Easter. He adored
the eggshell litter and the cellophane
caught in the grass. Each door he passed
swung with its own business, all the 
witnesses along his route of pain
again distracted by fear of loss
or hope of gain. It was wonderful
to be a man, bewildered by 
so many flowers, the rush
and ebb of hours, his own
ambiguous gestures--his 
whole heart exposed, then
taking cover.
Kay Ryan

spring song

the green of Jesus 
is breaking the ground
and the sweet
smell of delicious Jesus
is opening the house and
the dance of Jesus music
has hold of the air and
the world is turning
in the body of Jesus and
the future is possible

Lucille Clifton

Happy Easter to you.

The Day After Easter

The Palm at the End of the Mind


After fulfilling everything
one two three he came back again
free, no more prophecy requiring
that he enter the city just this way,
no more set-up treacheries.
It was the day after Easter. He adored
the eggshell litter and the cellophane
caught in the grass. Each door he passed
swung with its own business, all the 
witnesses along his route of pain
again distracted by fear of loss
or hope of gain. It was wonderful
to be a man, bewildered by 
so many flowers, the rush
and ebb of hours, his own
ambiguous gestures--his 
whole heart exposed, then
taking cover.


--Kay Ryan

Happy Easter!

In lieu of a post, listen to this snippet of beauty on my Tumblr.

Click here.

Easter

The Palm at the End of the Mind


After fulfilling everything
one two three he came back again
free, no more prophecy requiring
that he enter the city just this way,
no more set-up treacheries.
It was the day after Easter. He adored
the eggshell litter and the cellophane
caught in the grass. Each door he passed
swung with its own business, all the 
witnesses along his route of pain
again distracted by fear of loss
or hope of gain. It was wonderful
to be a man, bewildered by 
so many flowers, the rush
and ebb of hours, his own
ambiguous gestures--his 
whole heart exposed, then
taking cover.


Kay Ryan

Post Easter Melancholy, Robert Burton and Language, Really Great Literature

This post is dedicated to my comrades in epilepsy arms but might amuse anyone

Much of today was spent like this:

I guess there's something to be said for staying in one's pajamas nearly all day, reading two collections of short stories -- one by George Saunders and the other by Jamie Quatro -- and allowing both of my sons to play video games all day and to somewhat neglect my daughter. Both books were so fantastic that I was nearly yanked out of my Easter Sunday melancholy, but not quite. I'm feeling obsessed by the Quatro book in particular and am sorry that I finished it. I won't tell you what the short stories are about but think infidelity, sex, religion, the south, Flannery O'Connor weirdness and you'll have some idea. It might be my Every Five Years Or So Book.**

Speaking of literature, I got this email and thought to make it just one post, titled The Bastardization of Language.

Reader, why?

I suppose the definition of literature might include those writings of scientific or medical interest, but the literature on pediatric antiepileptic drugs? To be read on Easter Sunday when in a state of melancholy? Speaking of melancholy, even Robert Burton, the esteemed writer of the seventeenth century titled his tome The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up. That was in 1621. 

If Robert Burton were to have written a book about pediatric anti-epileptic drugs, I figure he'd title it something like The Anatomy of Hell, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Side Effectes, False Prognostickes, and Never a Cure for the Epilepsies. In One Thousand Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, The Braine Opened and Fucked Up.




**I read pretty voraciously -- sometimes up to fifty books a year, not counting poetry and The New Yorker, but it's only every five years or so that I read a novel that knocks me out. The last one I can remember doing so was Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, and that was in late 2009, so it's a little early to be counting it, but I Want to Show You More might be a contender.

Happy Easter and a Sibling Story, in the Vein of Jesus Wept

We decorated.

We glared.

(at our brother while coloring eggs)

We threw.

(our brother's shoe, where it miraculously wrapped around a branch and got stuck)

We yelled.

(to get that shoe out of the tree, immediately)

We tried.

(over and over with a basketball, to get the shoe out of the tree)

It stuck.

(the basketball, miraculously, in a fork of the tree, above the shoe)

We climbed.

 (the tree) 

We screamed.

(the mother did, while the boy climbed)

We retreated.
(The mother went inside)

We succeeded.

(We defied gravity, used an orange picker)

Beautiful

(He looked, despite the shenanigans)

Happy Birthday Vincent Van Gogh**

 When I have a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.

Vincent Van Gogh 

via s.landry

**Van Gogh is a famous epileptic and therefore dear to my heart. Stumbling upon this quote on Facebook this morning seemed significant and has effectively dispelled my Easter melancholy. Read the whole letter here.

Bewildered by so many flowers

I woke up this morning, literally thinking, thinking that I needed to call on Monday and change Sophie's doctor's appointment from Wednesday when she'd have to miss school, to later in June when she's out of school. I thought about Easter, how I had no plans. I wondered what machinations of the brain had happened in the moment before that thought, how I'd gone from sleep to wake to thought to navel.

Navel-gazing -- I've always hated that term, probably because I do a lot of it. I lay in bed this morning, mourning Easter and the fact that I have no plans. I have no plans because I've made no plans, other than the filling of Easter baskets for the children. I won't be the Catholic that goes to church on Easter Sunday, but I will be the person who thinks deeply about the day's meaning in our culture, about the love reborn, about the spring.

Thought lies heavy in the morning over the navel. It depresses the bed beneath it.

There's this:

The Palm at the End of the Mind


After fulfilling everything
one two three he came back again
free, no more prophecy requiring
that he enter the city just this way,
no more set-up treacheries.
It was the day after Easter. He adored
the eggshell litter and the cellophane
caught in the grass. Each door he passed
swung with its own business, all the 
witnesses along his route of pain
again distracted by fear of loss
or hope of gain. It was wonderful
to be a man, bewildered by 
so many flowers, the rush
and ebb of hours, his own
ambiguous gestures--his 
whole heart exposed, then
taking cover.


--Kay Ryan

Easter, Anthem, Manna from Heaven and Paradox

what I imagine Anthem Blue Cross headquarters to look like

Are you sitting down?

I received the following notice in my inbox this morning:

Your rates may be reduced and you could get a refund.

We have reached agreements with the California Department of Managed Healthcare and the California Department of Insurance to lower our average Individual rates. This agreement does not impact our California HIPAA and Conversion plans and policies

That means your rates may be coming down soon! We are currently recalculating the change to your medical premium and potential refund. We expect to have the new rates finished, filed and updated in our May billing cycle. This information will be provided to you soon.

If you cancelled your coverage after receiving the notice of your rate change, you will be given the chance to reactivate your Individual health benefit plan.

We value your membership. More information will be mailed to you in the coming weeks.

I was just thinking that since I left the Catholic Church, celebrating Easter seems hollow and a bit depressing. I haven't quite figured out how to celebrate its message of love renouncing death, but perhaps this email from Anthem holds the answer -- either that or bunnies really do hop around with baskets of colored eggs and chocolates.

Happy Easter

Make visible what, without you, might never

have been seen.

Robert Bresson

Since I left the Catholic Church, I feel a bit lonely about Easter. But that's all right. My faith in renewal, in the divine all around us, in love, remains. I remember this poem:



The Palm at the End of the Mind


After fulfilling everything
one two three he came back again
free, no more prophecy requiring
that he enter the city just this way,
no more set-up treacheries.
It was the day after Easter. He adored
the eggshell litter and the cellophane
caught in the grass. Each door he passed
swung with its own business, all the 
witnesses along his route of pain
again distracted by fear of loss
or hope of gain. It was wonderful
to be a man, bewildered by 
so many flowers, the rush
and ebb of hours, his own
ambiguous gestures--his 
whole heart exposed, then
taking cover.


--Kay Ryan


Happy Easter.

Eggs

The light in my dining room never gets old,

and every morning I am mesmerized by how it literally streams through the windows and illuminates everything, even the crap piled in the corners. It's the day before Easter, and my list of things to do (I don't make lists; it's all in my head) is long. Baseball practice for Henry, a haircut for Oliver, eggs to boil to dye and maybe even hot cross buns to make. I have an urge to bake, and tomorrow we have friends coming over for brunch. I'm glad that even though I don't do the whole Easter church thing anymore, I'll still get into the egg dying and Easter baskets for the kids. They already know about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and then rising up on the third day. I think they know about forgiveness and redemption and joy and resurrection down deep in their souls and it radiates right out of their eyes and smiles. I saw it when Oliver goofy-danced around Sophie's room this morning and she looked at him side-long and smiled. I saw it the other day when Henry placed his gentle hand on her back to guide her as she walked, aimlessly, in the grass. I saw it when they ran out of the house and helped me to empty the groceries out of the car, without me asking. And I saw it when Oliver planted an entire vegetable garden by himself yesterday afternoon. Just when my patience had died and my joy in the daily is buried, something or other rolls back the rock and it's all reborn. This is my testament.

The extent of my Easter decorating

Weekend Wrap-Up

Mini chocolate cupcakes with orange frosting

Yellow Cake with Bittersweet Ganache and Marzipan Eggs

Perhaps the only nutritional meal consumed over three days --

Working off the sugar --

Easter baskets

A smashed clown nose

Sophie's Easter basket

Sophie, attempting to eat a chocolate ladybug

Does Sophie look a bit like Bob Dylan here or what?

The wraparound balls were a huge hit. Way to go, Easter bunny!

I also made Ms. Moon's Angel Biscuits, and there's a big bowl of the dough sitting in my fridge. Last night we ate them with ham and honey. They were excellent, and it was good to be eating a little something permeated by such a dear blogger friend!

Easter, or the day after, if Jesus came back as a regular man

Oliver exploring the ruins of the burnt mission church at San Juan Capistrano

I had nothing to write of Easter, of eggs, forgotten, still brown and white on their tempered shelf, of the slip out of church, the sidle down the two-year aisle, the children running to fill plastic eggs with candy and the pull away of ritual. I had nothing to write of Easter.

Last night I went to Royce Hall and heard the poets Billy Collins and Kay Ryan in conversation. They were witty and kind and funny and in love with words. 

Kay Ryan read this poem, and now I have something to write of Easter:

The Palm at the End of the Mind


After fulfilling everything
one two three he came back again
free, no more prophecy requiring
that he enter the city just this way,
no more set-up treacheries.
It was the day after Easter. He adored
the eggshell litter and the cellophane
caught in the grass. Each door he passed
swung with its own business, all the 
witnesses along his route of pain
again distracted by fear of loss
or hope of gain. It was wonderful
to be a man, bewildered by 
so many flowers, the rush
and ebb of hours, his own
ambiguous gestures--his 
whole heart exposed, then
taking cover.


--Kay Ryan