In 2020 — when we still thought that lockdown might be just two weeks, then maybe one month, how could it last any longer? — I wrote haiku.
Three lines a day to pay attention. To find beauty. To weave heartache with hope.
I’m realizing now how I stacked haiku together to form longer poems, just as those days of lockdown stacked one after another.
Today, Easter Sunday, I’m sharing two poems from 2020 and 2021:
I wasn’t raised in a particular religion. I grew up the daughter of two ex-Catholics who wanted my brother and I to be free of guilt. They introduced us to Buddhism and Taoism. We celebrated Passover and Hanukkah with friends every year. They didn’t stop me from attending Catholic or Baptist churches with my friends and cousins, but they didn’t overtly encourage it, either. Above all else, my parents encouraged exploration.
Still, my mom loves Jesus and Mary, and she constantly told me stories about miracles and the love that lives in all of us. Even though we didn’t go to church, we gathered with family for big Easter celebrations each year. I don’t believe in the image of Jesus that’s been manufactured to promote political violence or colonization. But I do find awe in the stories of someone who tended to those less fortunate, who stood up to political power, who believed everyone worthy of love.
Easter is a time of waking up, of the Earth blooming again after winter — and, as we’re seeing in protests across the country, of people rising.
May the energy of rebirth remind us that our hearts are big enough to love our way into healing all that attempts to pull us apart. May we plant seeds that will bloom into nourishment for the heart and soul. May we make art and tend the soil and love fully, like spring after snow.
