Happy
Easter
Lindley in her Easter outfit
An Easter Reflection by Judy Lorenzen
Visiting my granddaughter Lindley,
who’s five years old,
I realize she loves everything,
everything is her favorite—
her favorite colors are pink and purple,
but she loves yellow, green and blue, too.
She loves the holidays—all of them!
Her dad puts up Christmas lights.
Her mom hangs her hearts all over the house on Valentine’s Day—
She is going to color her mother some new turkeys for next year,
but her favorite holiday this last year was Easter.
She tells me that she wore her new white dress
and shiny new shoes that her mom and dad bought her,
that her mother hid the eggs they had colored the day before
all over the house that morning.
Before she went to Sunday School,
they looked for the hidden eggs.
When she got home,
someone in their new neighborhood in Owasso
had placed colorful plastic Easter eggs
full of candies all over people’s yards,
so she got to collect eggs again,
and most important, she tells me, the rain came,
and she watched it from the front picture window—
and she loves rain.
It is her favorite—did I know that.
And even better, the rain puddled in huge puddles
by the gutters off their house.
And when the rain stopped,
her mom said she could go outside and play,
even in her new dress,
because she loves Easter and to play in the rain,
and her mother made her put on her rainboots and take an umbrella,
and she knew her mother would take a picture of her playing in the rain
because her mother loves to take lots of pictures of her and her sister,
and at that, she ran off and returned with photos in her hands.
There were photos of her jumping in the big puddle in her boots,
holding her umbrella over her head, laughing,
photos of her running in the rain,
and one photo of her squatting down, bent over, face down,
looking at the water in the big puddle at the corner of the house,
as her delighted reflection smiled back at her.
Suddenly, she grabbed my hand and asked me
if I would like to go outside and watch clouds together,
so we went off to watch clouds that we would draw later—
because she loves clouds.
Peanut Butter Prayers by Elaine Sorrentino
I looked up from my station.
Mary stood in the library doorway
clutching a romance novel
to her chest, attempting a smile,
although chronic neuropathic pain
made it appear much like a grimace.
Nothing would stop her
from her Holy Saturday mission.
Malady aside, she shuffled her way
to circulation, placing the overdue
book on my desk calendar,
then slipping me a Reese’s
peanut butter Easter egg,
whispered, I can’t think of anyone
who needs this more.
You’ve had a rough year.
Visiting my granddaughter Lindley,
who’s five years old,
I realize she loves everything,
everything is her favorite—
her favorite colors are pink and purple,
but she loves yellow, green and blue, too.
She loves the holidays—all of them!
Her dad puts up Christmas lights.
Her mom hangs her hearts all over the house on Valentine’s Day—
She is going to color her mother some new turkeys for next year,
but her favorite holiday this last year was Easter.
She tells me that she wore her new white dress
and shiny new shoes that her mom and dad bought her,
that her mother hid the eggs they had colored the day before
all over the house that morning.
Before she went to Sunday School,
they looked for the hidden eggs.
When she got home,
someone in their new neighborhood in Owasso
had placed colorful plastic Easter eggs
full of candies all over people’s yards,
so she got to collect eggs again,
and most important, she tells me, the rain came,
and she watched it from the front picture window—
and she loves rain.
It is her favorite—did I know that.
And even better, the rain puddled in huge puddles
by the gutters off their house.
And when the rain stopped,
her mom said she could go outside and play,
even in her new dress,
because she loves Easter and to play in the rain,
and her mother made her put on her rainboots and take an umbrella,
and she knew her mother would take a picture of her playing in the rain
because her mother loves to take lots of pictures of her and her sister,
and at that, she ran off and returned with photos in her hands.
There were photos of her jumping in the big puddle in her boots,
holding her umbrella over her head, laughing,
photos of her running in the rain,
and one photo of her squatting down, bent over, face down,
looking at the water in the big puddle at the corner of the house,
as her delighted reflection smiled back at her.
Suddenly, she grabbed my hand and asked me
if I would like to go outside and watch clouds together,
so we went off to watch clouds that we would draw later—
because she loves clouds.
Peanut Butter Prayers by Elaine Sorrentino
I looked up from my station.
Mary stood in the library doorway
clutching a romance novel
to her chest, attempting a smile,
although chronic neuropathic pain
made it appear much like a grimace.
Nothing would stop her
from her Holy Saturday mission.
Malady aside, she shuffled her way
to circulation, placing the overdue
book on my desk calendar,
then slipping me a Reese’s
peanut butter Easter egg,
whispered, I can’t think of anyone
who needs this more.
You’ve had a rough year.
Two poems by Lynn White
Easter Bonnet
You promised me an easter bonnet
to celebrate my first swim.
I thought I might lay you an egg
an Easter gift to thank you
for your kind thoughts.
But this is a travesty.
A blond wig is not a bonnet.
You’ve made me look like a clown,
a Tin Tin combed duck
or a Lisa Simpson
on a bad hair day.
I shall swim away.
There’ll be no egg for you
today.
Easter Bonnet
You promised me an easter bonnet
to celebrate my first swim.
I thought I might lay you an egg
an Easter gift to thank you
for your kind thoughts.
But this is a travesty.
A blond wig is not a bonnet.
You’ve made me look like a clown,
a Tin Tin combed duck
or a Lisa Simpson
on a bad hair day.
I shall swim away.
There’ll be no egg for you
today.
Rosamunde
“Happy Easter!” you said.
I’m trying to smile
as I thank you.
“She’s called Rosamunde”, you said,
a pretty name for a pretty chicken.
I try to smile as I thank you.
for Easter eggs to come.
I wonder if I should show you my new garden,
but perhaps now is not the best of times.
I wonder what Rosamunde will make
of it’s neat parade of flowers
and its spotless deck.
I try to smile
as I thank you
for Rosamunde
your generous gift
of Easter eggs to come.
First published in Nine Muses Press
“Happy Easter!” you said.
I’m trying to smile
as I thank you.
“She’s called Rosamunde”, you said,
a pretty name for a pretty chicken.
I try to smile as I thank you.
for Easter eggs to come.
I wonder if I should show you my new garden,
but perhaps now is not the best of times.
I wonder what Rosamunde will make
of it’s neat parade of flowers
and its spotless deck.
I try to smile
as I thank you
for Rosamunde
your generous gift
of Easter eggs to come.
First published in Nine Muses Press
Two Poems by Joan Leotta
Light Bulb Birthing Station
It was the fifties (1950s)
My grandma, usually impervious to trends
had heard that a wonderful way to celebrate Easter,
a time of new birth, new beginnings,
was to purchase fertile eggs and allow
your children to watch the miracle
of fluffy yellow chicks pecking their
way out of eggs resting in a bed of hay,
warmed by a light bulb
instead of by a clucking mother hen.
Grandma installed her purchase
under her gray Formica kitchen table
and every day I visited to check
the slow progress of these eggs from
looking like rocks to live little chicks.
At last the miracle occurred—but at night
so I missed the actual exit from the shell.
My nascent math skills told me that
Grandma had hoped I would not notice,
that one chick never escaped its egg,
unopened one was gone when I visited.
For a few days I helped clean the box,
Feed the chicks. Then Grandma declared
They were too disruptive and dirty for
her kitchen. She called her sister who had
a large backyard henhouse, just
a few miles away. Aunt Rose came,
took the chicks, and promised tearful me
I could visit them.
In June, we went to Aunt Rose’s house.
While the grownups talked inside.
my second cousin, Maria squired me
through the backyard “farm” they’d made
right in center city Pittsburgh—henhouse,
ducks, beehives, garden, fruit trees.
The chicks were not as cute now,
but I was pleased to see they seemed happy,
not marked for transport to a dining table.
That night at dinner, Grandma served
chicken. I didn’t eat it.
Light Bulb Birthing Station
It was the fifties (1950s)
My grandma, usually impervious to trends
had heard that a wonderful way to celebrate Easter,
a time of new birth, new beginnings,
was to purchase fertile eggs and allow
your children to watch the miracle
of fluffy yellow chicks pecking their
way out of eggs resting in a bed of hay,
warmed by a light bulb
instead of by a clucking mother hen.
Grandma installed her purchase
under her gray Formica kitchen table
and every day I visited to check
the slow progress of these eggs from
looking like rocks to live little chicks.
At last the miracle occurred—but at night
so I missed the actual exit from the shell.
My nascent math skills told me that
Grandma had hoped I would not notice,
that one chick never escaped its egg,
unopened one was gone when I visited.
For a few days I helped clean the box,
Feed the chicks. Then Grandma declared
They were too disruptive and dirty for
her kitchen. She called her sister who had
a large backyard henhouse, just
a few miles away. Aunt Rose came,
took the chicks, and promised tearful me
I could visit them.
In June, we went to Aunt Rose’s house.
While the grownups talked inside.
my second cousin, Maria squired me
through the backyard “farm” they’d made
right in center city Pittsburgh—henhouse,
ducks, beehives, garden, fruit trees.
The chicks were not as cute now,
but I was pleased to see they seemed happy,
not marked for transport to a dining table.
That night at dinner, Grandma served
chicken. I didn’t eat it.
Mr. Wiggles
For some reason, my belief in the Easter Bunny
as a magical being persisted long past
my belief in Santa Claus. It seemed logical to
me that God would invest one of His creatures
with the grace to bring chocolate and jellybeans
on His Resurrection day.
My parents and Grandma never tried to dissuade
me from this firm belief that I repeated to them
right along with my catechism lessons.
I was eight when the last bit of this childhood
magic was made manifest to me—
Grandma handed me a basket when we picked
her up for church on Easter morning.
On top of the chocolate bunnies and crosses,
plastic eggs filled with spiced jellybeans
sat a plush bunny, standing up, dressed in striped
pants. His kind face and floppy ears endeared
him to me immediately and I knew
(though not in these terms then) that he, Mr. Wiggles,
was the confidante I needed to traverse the back
and forth between the magic world of childhood
and the pedestrian, fraught world of growing up.
For years he received my joys, my hurts,
anger with my mother, all manner of teen angst.
His kindness never wavered, He was always
on my side. His magic never ebbed, I saw it
in later years as a form of blessing, he was a pet
in a household where my mother’s fears
kept us from having a live animal.
When I went to college I stored him carefully
In my closet where my mother would
not find him in one of her “decluttering sweeps.”
Alas on my first Christmas home, I
Realized she had discovered and disposed of
Mr. Wiggles, deeming me too old for him.
Now and then I wonder where he ended up
Hoping another child found him, sensed his magic,
found him comforting. Magic knows no end
if we are willing to believe.
Easter with Bunny Blue by Joe Cottonwood
A blue-gray rabbit stirs
in her cedar chip cage
as dawn pours through windows
to the shaggy rug (I should vacuum)
where my son, new to a world
outside womb lies kicking
as he kicked while within.
On our backs on soft wool
we wave hands and feet
in the sunbeam air
while mama sleeps.
Do I mimic him
or he me? We kick, wave, smile
while Quinn the German shepherd
sits in birdsong outside
maintaining our only shred of dignity
keeping guard of baby son,
of sleeping mama, of Bunny Blue
this simple silly leg-waving morning
when all life is newborn.
Two poems by Sharon Waller Knutson
Mama was the Easter Bunny
as well as Santa Claus
in my childhood home
in Montana in the fifties.
While we slept, mama
boiled eggs and dyed them
red, yellow and blue.
And she hid them in the back
yard and woke us up and blamed
it on the Easter Bunny.
We were too young to wonder
where a stupid rabbit would
get colored eggs. And why
would he hide them and make
us hunt for them. Every kid
in my class knew the Easter
Bunny and Santa Claus were lies
our parents told us long before I did.
And even after I found out the truth,
I didn’t hold it against mama. I helped
her boil, color and hide the eggs
and pretend the Easter Bunny
was real for the sake of my baby
sister who would sob if she found
out the Easter Bunny was dead.
Mama loved Easter as much
as she did Christmas. She
ordered Easter bonnets, shoes
and identical crinoline dresses
from the J.C, Penny catalogue
for her, my sister and me.
She’d buy a big box of Easter
Cards at the dime store
and send Easter cards
to all her sisters and brothers
and I’d go to the post office
to collect cards from them
and packages of stuffed bunnies
and chocolate eggs from our aunts
and grandmothers in other cities.
We wore our bonnets, dresses
and new patten shoes to Sunday
School but my mother only wore hers
for photographs my father
would take on Brownie or polaroid
cameras before Easter dinner.
My mother would bake a ham
with rings of pineapple and brown
sugar and serve it with a Jello
salad, green beans and mashed
potatoes. At least we didn’t have
to take down a tree or decorations.
And we went right back to school
on Monday and never wore our
Easter bonnet or dress again.
Which Holiday Harkens?
Under a pumpkin moon
hanging in a black sky
we hide colored eggs
among the tulips,
chrysanthemums
and crocus as snow falls
in flakes full and flouncy
as crocheted doilies.
We wonder is it Christmas
as we awaken
to a white blanket covering
the ground and Easter
Lilies bow their heads
as we skip to the steeple
to hear the sermon
in our frills and bonnets.
When we come out of church
we see the snow has melted
under a fiery sun and the grass
is greener and the flowers smile
and sparkle on this Easter Day.
What I Remember Most about Easter by Luanne Castle
How long it took me to eat a giant
chocolate bunny one year,
how my mom always served lamb
which I hated because it was gray and tough
and because it was a lamb, after all,
and how my Easter basket brimmed with jelly beans
(to make it look more full) which I hated—
but my dad loved them so I think they were for him.
It was fun, though, to sing “Easter Parade”
and look forward to this year’s flowered hat
or a new spring jacket or coat.
And then there was the year in junior high
that I got kelly green patent leather shoes
and little purse and then gloves to match!!!
At Miss Kitty's Home for Wayward Girls by Rachael Ikins
In the aftermath of winter storms,
broken marriages, death, and a quest
for independence a group of women
various ages, hair colors etc. gathered before a fire
to roast marshmallow Easter
Peeps. Creme brûlée on a fondue fork.
Good scouts that they were, creativity
& indoor fireplace saved dinner. A sudden rainstorm
soaked the plan to cook wieners over a bonfire
in the back yard. Every single woman lost a father
to heart disease when those fathers were fifty.
A strange, sad community.
But the elders, this tiny group of survivors,
delighted to shock younger; tales of sex,
dreams of lovers. One dreamer,
a poet. She read to them while embers, eyelids simmered
low. They slept with dogs, woke up, faced new
adventures. Next morning, poet noticed the fire.
Rekindled through night, ash-camouflaged coals.
Not unlike an older woman; holds deep heat.
One candle continued to waver from mantelpiece after
they'd gone to bed, guarding all sleepers and travelers
through darkness with love’s fragile constant magic.
Dandelion Spring by Mary Ellen Talley
after Emily Dickinson
Two children knock upon the door
With dandelion hands
Stems spring from each of their small fists
Filled with giving plans.
As root, leaf, and stem will nourish
Clocks of ticking seeds,
Gold globes deliver Sunday sun
Grace blowing past the weeds.
How long it took me to eat a giant
chocolate bunny one year,
how my mom always served lamb
which I hated because it was gray and tough
and because it was a lamb, after all,
and how my Easter basket brimmed with jelly beans
(to make it look more full) which I hated—
but my dad loved them so I think they were for him.
It was fun, though, to sing “Easter Parade”
and look forward to this year’s flowered hat
or a new spring jacket or coat.
And then there was the year in junior high
that I got kelly green patent leather shoes
and little purse and then gloves to match!!!
At Miss Kitty's Home for Wayward Girls by Rachael Ikins
In the aftermath of winter storms,
broken marriages, death, and a quest
for independence a group of women
various ages, hair colors etc. gathered before a fire
to roast marshmallow Easter
Peeps. Creme brûlée on a fondue fork.
Good scouts that they were, creativity
& indoor fireplace saved dinner. A sudden rainstorm
soaked the plan to cook wieners over a bonfire
in the back yard. Every single woman lost a father
to heart disease when those fathers were fifty.
A strange, sad community.
But the elders, this tiny group of survivors,
delighted to shock younger; tales of sex,
dreams of lovers. One dreamer,
a poet. She read to them while embers, eyelids simmered
low. They slept with dogs, woke up, faced new
adventures. Next morning, poet noticed the fire.
Rekindled through night, ash-camouflaged coals.
Not unlike an older woman; holds deep heat.
One candle continued to waver from mantelpiece after
they'd gone to bed, guarding all sleepers and travelers
through darkness with love’s fragile constant magic.
Dandelion Spring by Mary Ellen Talley
after Emily Dickinson
Two children knock upon the door
With dandelion hands
Stems spring from each of their small fists
Filled with giving plans.
As root, leaf, and stem will nourish
Clocks of ticking seeds,
Gold globes deliver Sunday sun
Grace blowing past the weeds.
Emily Dickinson’s #1519
The Dandelion's pallid tube
Astonishes the Grass-
And Winter instantly becomes
An infinite Alas-
The tube uplifts a signal Bud
And then a shouting Flower-
The Proclamation of the Suns
That sepulture is o'er-
Two poems by Lorraine Caputo
VIA CRUCIS – A Poem for Jueves Santo
(El Estor, Guatemala – 1994)
Under the full moon
a procession wends
through the village
At 14 altars
the 14 stations of the cross
decorated with flowers & candles
they stop
A woman
waves copal incense in front
A man
says a prayer in Quek’chi
The altar boys
in white & red
carry the crucifix & candles
Next come the elders
Then Christ
in red
carrying his cross
upon men’s shoulders
After them walk
the congregation
the priests
& on-lookers
Their voices rise in song
in Spanish, in Quek’chi
published in: Agape Review (16 April 2022)
RESURRECTION DAWN
(San Salvador, El Salvador – 1998)
Four-thirty
I crawl out of the hazes of my sleep
Explosions echo through the streets & alleys
Where am I?
San Salvador.
The Revolution.
The city is under attack?
I walk out to the back patio
where the resounding is clearer
The volcano is lost in the dusty haze
of the nearing end of this dry season
Only the brightest of stars are visible
Blast follows rocket blast
The early morning traffic hums
Singing fills the darkness
It is Easter Sunday
& I wonder during those 10, 12 years of war
when a curfew blanketed the night
How could these people celebrate the Resurrection?
Could they have those fireworks
those songs?
Could their procession wind
down these full-moon streets?
& I wonder of those deep in their sleep
What do they feel they fear
with each rocket exploding?
Do their dreams
turn to nightmares?
The pre-dawn sky lightens
with the tolling of church bells
The gunshots of firecrackers pop-pop
through the alleys & streets
published in: Black Coffee Review (Spring 2021)
