I was reading about a church
that did away with the Palm Sunday processional this year
for clarity’s sake,
to add weight to the final days of Christ,
when my wife asked me to take out the trash.
The bag was overflowing
with cast-offs, coffee grounds,
and trampled palm branches
from the morning’s service.
I tied it up
and took it out.
On the cross-section of lawn
parallel to the bins,
the wind was whipping
up water to meet me, spackling
my face with pellets.
Two days back
it was sixty-five and sunny.
A false spring, they say,
because now, at just above freezing,
Winter was lashing out
one last time (for good measure),
as if we hadn’t been beaten down enough.
But after I discarded my burden
and turned again homeward,
the wind leaped upon me like a hound,
greeting me with force
and the wet-dog scent
of what was to come,
a power beyond winter
licking the bones of the earth clean
and growling in play
as it shook us all.
I recalled
Bartimaeus making a scene,
Zaccheus scuttling from the tree,
the riot of palms and coats
amid shrieking, grimy children —
that joy, of all things, doesn’t require
clarity of theology,
but only faithful welcome
and a bit of clumsy glee.
The child in the front row
whacking his friend with palm fronds
knows more of Christ
than the grumpy seminarian
wielding Grudem in the back.
I suppose even the stones know more,
crying out as they do.
