The old bones creak and ache through the night and then morning comes, the tiniest gold glimmer peeking its head from underneath the blanket of night, breathing out a breath of light, and I can feel Easter in my bones, telling me it’s a new day.
This body tired from tossing and turning, weighed with worries and wants, levitates like a magician’s trick when the first brew of fresh coffee floats in the air, telling me to take and drink, the sour sip startling my tongue, going deep down, warming my soul, and I can feel Easter in my bones.
The old dog, her small body growing smaller with each day, sleeps on a pillow nearby, hearing the shuffle of my feet on the floor, her ears pop up and then her head, and somehow she bounces up even with a bad back and hurries to my side, not a step behind, sometimes a step ahead, and seeing her still with a spring in her step, and I can feel Easter in my bones.
Outdoors, the strength of night fades after its sentinel duty and the rooster crows, blowing the bugle for the sun to shine, for the earth, lifeless and listless, must be warmed after the cold of the long night, so that life can pop from the ground like popcorn kernels sunbathing in the splattering grease of the stovetop kettle . The sun roars into the sky, ready for a new day, and seeing it all I can feel Easter in my bones.
In the crack of the concrete the tiny hyacinth plant paints blotches of purple on the canvas of the clean air, its blooms like miniature clusters of grapes, busting out of the stone-cold womb, daring the prison cell to stop it from walking in the world, and, watching young David slay overmatched Goliath, I can feel Easter in my bones.
Up in the birdhouse where the vacancy sign stayed lighted up all winter long, a lonely place until a thrown-together nest of skeletal twigs and starved needles sprouted the same day spring timidly knocked on the door, and today six bird-sized eggs the color of the sky napped on the sprigs of straw, and I swear I can feel Easter in my bones.
Walking past the long twisted arms of last summer’s grape vine, stripped naked by the lustful hands of winter, now small wrinkly leaves looking like the skin of a newborn baby timidly open their wings, take in the fresh sparkly air of spring and breathe out, unfolding baby-tender greens and I feel Easter in my bones.
Down the path, the smell turns sweet, a tall apple tree with its eyes toward the skies, wants to court the clouds, bringing a bouquet of pure white dainty delicate daisies trimmed in a bit of lipstick red, and a chuckle slips from my lips as I spy her Siren ways and I feel Easter in my bones at the sight.
A jealous cousin has seen it too and has pulled out her prettiest dress, a cascade of pure white to hide her skinny arms and legs, and you can see her pulling out all the stops, her dress so full of pearl white blossoms you’ll forgive the pear tree’s green-eyed jealousy of her apple-tree cousin’s street corner allure, and watching them vye for the same boyfriend I can feel Easter in my bones.
A single butterfly swims atop the waves of the wind, wings outstretched like an olympic swimmer, shimmering when streaks of sun shine through these strong sails, enjoying the picnic now put before it after the long winter fast, slurping the sweet nectar until it’s in a drunken stupor, and seeing the sight I can feel Easter in my bones.
Beside an abandoned house, not a living soul in it in forever, a lilac bush, blossoms reigning in courtly splendor, royal purple corsages pinned to every limb, shows off its early spring foliage like a girl wearing her Easter bonnet, prancing in the wind, sweetening the air, and sprucing up the unpainted house with a fresh coat of paint, and, taking it all in, I can feel Easter in my bones.
The dead-tired dirt slowly awakens from its long winter rest at the sound of the solid rake digging furrows into it, like the caress of fingers on the scalp, tiny morsels of seeds dropped into the damp dirt, and the ground grabs hold and fast and brings each one close to it, like a mother finding her long- lost child, and the two weep tears of joy as they dance in a circle, the beat of the music reaching the surface and I can feel Easter in my bones.
The playful, child-like dog strips off its winter fur coat and skinny dips in the sprinkler, splashing heavy drops of holy water on the newborn grass underfoot and I, awe-struck and struck-dumb, mumble a quick prayer of baptism because I can feel Easter in my bones.
A squirrel shimmies across the ground, opening up its lunchbox of old stale pecans, famished from these months of famine, nibbles on the dark, dehydrated meat of last fall’s pecans, and, staring up to the bare branches overhead, spots the first few greens, and, throwing the leftovers of winter into a nearby bush, break-dances on all fours, and watching it all, I can feel Easter in my bones.
The brown-robed cicadas, enclosed in their underground cloister for years, climb from their cold unlighted choir stalls, breaking their vow of silence, filling the air now with celestial chants, turning the ground above into their belfryed cathedral and, hearing the song of these coifed sisters, I can feel Easter in my bones.
A frazzled and frizzled woman stumbles through the dark towards the graveyard, a star showing her the way, until she finds the right place, and as the dawn starts to pour raindrops of light upon her, she hears the sound of a stone split in two and she stands, a solitary spy, as a gush of wet wind blows through her hair and through the sliver of space in the rock, and she hears the softest whisper echo through the cavern, the sweetest sound, like a mother singing to the babe at her breast, and she, the woman now bathing in the soft light, suddenly feels Easter in her bones.
A man locked in the vice-grips of death, his black and blue, beaten and broken body tightly wrapped in a lily-white cocoon of cloth, twitches and trembles and throws off the deep slumber of death like it’s nothing but a heavy blanket no longer needed, the sound of his heart starting up sluggishly like a car on a cold winter morning, expelling with his first breath the foul fumes of the tomb, inhaling deep from the fresh draft of outside air circling around him like a race car, minute by minute blood warming up, while his hands arm-wrestle with the seat-belt band around them until it splits, shedding the shroud like a butterfly let loose to fly freely, and he feels Easter in his bones.
Bummed-out and burnt-out, the band of brothers bundle up their sleeping bags, ready to get out of the cruel cold city and back to their creaky clapboard boats, a night on the sea nothing like the night they have just had, when he comes out of nowhere, the one they were sure they had lost, seeing with their own tear-blinded eyes him kidnapped and killed, and yet, here he is, and before they can get a word out of their wide-open mouths, he smiles, throws open his arms, and says to them, “Peace, brothers.” And they, each one of them feels Easter in their bones.
Easter isn’t a day, it’s a feeling, a feeling you get deep down in your bones whenever life wins the big race, when a beat-up and beaten-down and buried body in a hole in the ground rises from the dust and gets back in the race, feet floating on the air, face glowing in the sunlight because it’s just too strong to stay dead for good because the God of life wouldn’t have it any other way and because that eternal source of life is out to resurrect every dead body he can breathe life back into, and if you just look around, really look, you’ll see it for yourself, and you’ll feel Easter in your bones just like I do.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 