Easter poems

Easter Good Friday fish dinner

with an elderly aunt

stations of the cross

at her local church

a glimpse of sea view

afternoon tea & a few hymns

her shoulder to my knocking shoulder

her arm through the crook of mine

–Rory Harris

The Risen Christ In Rembrandt's painting, the risen Christ wears a jaunty hat, carries a dainty spade, and wears a scabbard in his belt. The spade, I guess, was for digging out the stone that trapped him in his now un-needed tomb, the scabbard, and the knife within, for dealing with grave-robbers shocked and disappointed to find their helpless victim up and about. But the hat: that seems too ostentatious, too vain for a saviour and son of God. This was before the news of U.V. rays, so sun-protection could not be the cause. Why then? Even if hat-wearing signalled his devotion as a pious Jew, why such a hat? So roguish! So impious! Impish, even!

He has come to greet his girlfriend (well, so the stories go) Mary Magdalene. He has crept up on her in the midst of her unending grief, praying, it seems, to two young angels perched at the top of the stone steps. Now I see! She has come to tend his lonely broken body, only to find a pair of angels sprawled at the mouth of the opened tomb, placed there, one supposes, in token of the miracle that's occurred. Then Jesus, approaching Mary from behind, surprises her with a voice she recognises, but feared she'd never hear again. Her face is a mask of wonder, uncomprehending. But what surprises me is how unprepared, how dazzled Christ appears, his eyebrows raised in stunned amazement, as though he never imagined she would return once more with gifts to leave at his grave; as though he did not know that she had loved him so, did not believe that she believed in him. How human he seems then, to be surprised by love, not to expect devotion. Was that what Rembrandt hoped, that with a touch of paint he might construe the risen, transformed Christ as still wholly a man; and the world, even after all that had happened, the suffering, humiliation and betrayal, still an inexhaustible well of mysteries, of unexpected hope?

–Jeff Klooger God of small things I take the bread remembering God made small — a body broken

a scattering of crumbs — some no bigger than a mustard seed

–Janette Fernando