Palm Sunday: National Poetry Month, Day 5

Yesterday I said I'd post something more positive today. I'm not sure I'm going to accomplish that, but you be the judge.

Today is Palm Sunday, and it's always a fun day to go to church. Little children wave palm branches in commemoration of the crowds lining the road as Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem at the beginning of the week that led to the cross. We don't really have little children in our house church group, so even if we were meeting together, we wouldn't have the cuteness factor. This morning, instead of displaying palms in our living room and getting the Communion elements ready, my husband went on a foraging expedition to the grocery store, wearing a mask. I like the regular traditions better, and would not recommend repeating this year's.

It felt as though I was sending him into battle, and sure enough, a few minutes after he left, I heard several gunshots way too close for comfort. I immediately called him, and he was fine, but the unwanted sound effects were a reminder that COVID-19 isn't the only bad thing in our city right now.

I made myself a cup of tea and sat on the front porch with my binoculars, but I was stressed and distracted. Soon the birds started helping me feel better. Most of what I saw this morning was in the doves and pigeons category; there are so many of them that I tend to disregard them. They aren't very interesting, because they're so common, but also, I'm learning that I can't tell them apart. This week I'm going to get serious about learning which of the possible four types of doves in our region, or three types of pigeons, I'm looking at. But I'm pretty sure it was a white-winged dove (Zenaida asiatica) that kept whooshing by me as I sat on the porch. I never see any bird going back and forth so close to me as I sit in my chair. Usually they keep their distance. But this one kept coming and going, carrying small twigs in its mouth. I guess nest-building was going on. I couldn't help smiling, thinking of the dove's connection to the Holy Spirit, and also of the dove Noah sent out from the Ark to check and see if the whole world as they knew it was still underwater.

The next smile came from a black-and-white warbler (Mniotilta varia), one of my favorite little birds. I hadn't seen any since my pandemic birding began, and I was starting to think they had all flown north, but no, there it was on the tree right in front of me. It didn't stay long, and didn't come back.

A few minutes later, I heard a distinctive long cry. That sounds like a Hispaniolan lizard cuckoo, I thought, but then I told myself I was definitely wrong, because I can't tell one bird sound from another. Nevertheless I trained my binoculars on the tree the sound was coming from, and a minute later I was thrilled to see, sure enough, my very favorite bird, the Hispaniolan lizard cuckoo (Coccyzus longirostris) with its fabulous long tail. (I picked this video because you can hear the sound and see the tail, but it misspells Hispaniolan, so just ignore that part.)

My heart leapt like Wordsworth's when he saw the rainbow. For a few minutes I forgot completely about my husband at the grocery store braving people breathing on him. I just reveled in that beautiful bird.

Later, after my husband was home and sanitized and the groceries were put away, we met with our church family over Zoom. We are spread all around the place now, some of us still here in Haiti, some not, some in complete isolation due to quarantine after travel, and some isolating with family. We talked about our different situations. Someone demonstrated how to make a mask out of a large handkerchief and some elastic bands. Someone else talked fabric for making filters to go inside the mask. As of Monday, it's going to be the law here in Haiti to wear a mask when you're in public. We shared what we'd heard, and what we knew, and we talked about the Biblical concept of lament, and how to process what's going on, and how to keep going in spite of what's difficult. And as we met together, the news started to come in about our first death here in Haiti caused by the virus.

We prayed, made our plans for Holy Week, talked about last year's wonderful celebrations, and then said goodbye.

"Hosanna," the people shouted as they waved palm branches while Jesus rode by. It means "Save us." And that's what we need.

John Donne wrote a lot about sickness, and as I think about this first person to die here from this modern plague, I want to share his poem thumbing his nose at death. I share it every year in October with my eighth graders, commemorating the death several years ago of one of our teachers, who was 25 and apparently healthy when she went to sleep one night, and who didn't wake up the next day. This year I didn't get to, because we were on lockdown and distance learning, so here it is, along with the paraphrase I wrote to help my kids understand it better.

Death, be not proud (Holy Sonnet 10)
by John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Death, don't think you're all that, even though some have said you're mighty and dreadful - you aren't. You think you're defeating those who die, but that's not the way it is, and you can't kill me, either. We get pleasure from rest and sleep, which are just imitations of you - won't we get even more pleasure when we die? As soon as good people die, they get rest for their bodies and freedom for their souls. You, Death, are a slave to many things - fate, chance, rulers, criminals. You hang out with poison, war, and sickness. If we want to sleep, we can always take Tylenol PM and get a better rest than you can give us, so what do you have to be proud about? After a short sleep, we'll wake to eternal life, and you, Death, won't even exist any more. Death: you're going to die!

Is that more cheerful than yesterday? Not really, and I'd better not promise anything about tomorrow. We'll just see.

Something cheerful, though, is the Progressive Poem, so much fun each year. Today's line is here, at Buffy Silverman's blog.

1 Donna Smith at Mainly Write
2 Irene Latham at Live Your Poem
3 Jone MacCulloch, deowriter
4 Liz Steinglass
5 Buffy Silverman
6 Kay McGriff at https://kaymcgriff.edublogs.org/
7 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
8 Tara Smith at Going to Walden
9 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
10 Matt Forrest Esenwine at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme
11 Janet Fagel, hosted at Reflections on the Teche
12 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
13 Kat Apel at Kat Whiskers
14 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
15 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
16 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
17 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
18 Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading
19 Tabatha at Opposite of Indifference
20 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
21 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
22 Julieanne Harmatz at To Read, To Write, To Be
23 Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
24 Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wandering
25 Amy at The Poem Farm
26 Dani Burtsfield at Doing the Work That Matters
27 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
28
29 Fran Haley at lit bits and pieces
30 Michelle Kogan