Well…that’s a downer like, “It’s over…”
My beloved tells me that when I throw a rock into a pond the ripples do not stop at the edge of the pond…the undulation continues on & on & on & on, molecule bumping molecule, atoms barreling into dirt to rock through any substance, clear around the world and circling back again. Change continues in small unending ways—each wave and bump the impetus for more movement.
Oh, I hear you physics people thinking…
…ah no, it is not an unending succession, there are losses. Consider Newton’s First law of Motion:
1. A body at rest tends to remain at rest.
2. A body in motion tends to remain in motion at a constant velocity unless acted on by a net external force.
Yep, those are laws. Immovable external forces, like friction. Oh, and gravity. It’s a complicated slow down.
Perhaps it feels like Easter (Christianity in general) is over, similar to ebbing ripples in a pond. There was the heyday, the big splash spreads noticeably (and somehow it tasted chocolatey) …then not so much—fading to invisible in one day. With all the external forces of our world, all the rivals, why wouldn’t it stop. Become nothing. Nothing at all.
Silence.
Like an echo. Sound waves also lose energy. An echo cannot go on forever. Sound becomes silence.
But, today is the day after all that. Forecast is for rain, soon to be upon us. One drop after another. Each plop in the puddle a ripple of becoming, each a story, listen, can you hear the tumult on the roof?
Unending? Well, holidays, like raindrops do come to an end.
But is there any silencing memory?
Even as I may endure terrible rains, Jesus’ death in my memory echoes back the harrowing gift he gave.
His story remains. My story remains.
I am forgiven, loved without end; gladness, gratefulness, bumps & spreads, reverberates, echoes, vibrates and infiltrates everything.
My world, our world, continues to be shaken…
…changed. Forever and always “the day after Easter.”
This is the anthem I live, I will live, all my days after Easter…
If you like give a listen…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XQDTZcJ_ntA
Telling me your story if you like. It’s the free fall of a drop and that affects everything forever…
Hello, Susan. I found your poetry while looking through the authors included in the Poiema Poetry Series. I am a fellow poet, and so so glad to have found your work. It’s excellent! Thank you for it!
Anna, so glad to meet you. I just went to your substack and YES! Your poems speak to my heart. The exchange of blood so to speak. It is a good thing.
Thank you, Susan! What a joy to hear from you. How in the world can you be so skilled in multiple art forms?! It seems like your poetry would take a lifetime of work, but somehow you are also a visual artist?
I began as a visual artist. My work was abstract so I created small poems to help people enter into the abstraction. A kind friend told me my art was fabulous but my poetry needed work and he suggested I get an MFA in poetry. Which I did. The two art forms eventually each took on a life of their own, not dependent on each other and have been growing ever since. I think of it like having more than one child HAH.
loved this! continuing the ripple…
Maryann! Of course you are! This is the real beauty of life together…