Easter Sunday 2020

In a recent post on my personal Facebook Page, I made a commitment to share a poem a day during the month of April in honor of this being National Poetry Month.

In the event the text of this poem too small or too pixelated within the golden backdrop that I created as an image, here's a copy of Oliver's poem:

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it glides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

Because it is now Easter morning, I chose The Sun, by Mary Oliver, for today's selection to post there but wanted to share it here too. Re this poem, Robin Bates writes, "I have periodically turned to Mary Oliver to provide Easter poems, even though she seldom speaks overtly about religion. A number of her lyrics reenact the progress of Easter week, from dark suffering to miraculous release and ecstatic union with the divine. In 'The Sun,' Oliver’s main focus is on the moment of transcendence."

Bates goes on to say, "It gives us a choice: we can either stand, emptied and receptive, and allow to sun to reach out and warm us. Or we can turn from this world and go crazy 'for power, for things.' Easter morning calls upon us to get our priorities straight."

I can't add much more to Bate's point that, "Easter morning calls upon us to get our priorities straight," which she wrote in 2015. Her words ring truer than ever on this 2020 Easter as everyone in the world is affected by the current coronavirus pandemic.

At this time, I'm so grateful that my next youngest sibling truly has her priorities straight. She lives out of state has been actively helping her husband, children, my mom and our youngest sister. She has also been helping me to get things I need is need as I'm required to shelter in place.

Because National Siblings Day (always celebrated on April 10th) occurred on Good Friday this year, I did not get a chance to honor the holiday as I've done in prior entries here on Blogger, so I'l do it nosw, by posting photos (below) of my siblings and I in bygone years on Easter Sunday.

And I'll leave it here for now, dear reader, but not before wishing you a blessed Easter,, if that is a holiday you observe, and if it isn't I wish you a good Sunday.