Easter in the pandemic, for Peter Ely, S.J.
Beneath the word COURAGE on a scrap of plywood in my neighbor’s yard, there is a poster of what looks from a distance like an order of chicken teriyaki with rice. But it’s the earth seen from space, the continents in their colors and the clouds. There is the God who made the world and the one gray garden of stone. There is the love that moves the stars and the one gray morning. The grieving women with their spices. The empty tomb. There is the angel in my neighbor’s yard, sitting on culvert reading a book. A gray stone angel with a gray stone book. His head is bowed. His feet are crossed. He is just a boy, with wings. And the stream flows beneath him, and the trees bloom behind him, and hidden in the branches, a black-throated gray warbler sings, zee-da-zee-da zee-zee, zee-da-zee-da zee-zee, again and again in the morning air.