Nobody was ever drunk on Easter

The morning too early and bright

unusual

not dread.

My parents, instead of hiding 

their drinking in the garage,

  as we kids played, 
  yet certain of the carnage to come,

took us to the woods on Easter

to teach us about resurrection

they could not imagine for themselves,

and

to gather moss

to become the bed 

for our Easter eggs.

At home we wrapped the eggs

in leaves, old coffee grounds

used for their brown color,

leaves from the forest

for patterns,

strips of colored cloth as dye

all bound in burlap, tied with string,

boiled, then unwrapped, 

eggs as earth-colored spheres

like gray stones, like brown shades of bark,

streaks of orange, blue, red

like a dawning sun,

the river in the forest,

a cardinal’s feather.

Before the coloring of the eggs,

in the woods,

we lifted muddy damp moss

with care

from the forest floor 

covered with the moldy dead leaves

that mulch life,

and strangely,

carry a fertile scent

of sweet loam

floating in the air, the promise, 

a resurrection guaranteed only

by a fallen tree 

on its trunk sprouting a cacophony of mushrooms,

the detritus of a tuft of fur

all turning, sinking into soil

then tender violets rise beneath the tree trunk,

later a bud on a branch of a sapling.