A week or so ago, during an early morning meditation,

I sat

hearing the furnace blow its warmth

as the robin sang his heartsong,

watching snow flakes float and whiten

the new greening grass and purple and saffron crocus,

smelling the pungent perfume of lilies

now wilt and faded with days since gracing Easter’s joy.

 

Today, Friday, the echoing day of my birth,

when on another Friday, six decades past,

a Good Friday,

new life broke through like Cohen’s crack.

 

Sun and Moon dictate Easter’s arrival: the first Sunday following the first ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or after the day of the vernal equinox

a Christian’s most celebrated day

but always foreshadowed by that Friday’s

death and darkness.

 

Regardless of the day on which my birthday falls,

I always feel the pull of my first birth day

primal as the ocean’s tide in response to the Moon

archetypal in symbol, suffering, surrender,

the promise of celebration.

Born of star dust

from ocean waters

the full moon face of the new born,

then and now.