Without a sound, the woods wept, news of their cry only reaching the world when smoke signaled, wisps of drifting grey wandering lost among the grey trunks, there, from beyond the far knoll. I catch my breath. Is it time already?
I am here at farmtable, before the stretch of glass and light, sun shimmering through petals of white irises arranging themselves on slender stems for a centerpiece. The iridescent blooms float, celestial. I anchor the spray with two heavy, rusted nails to one side, the kind that could hold the weight of a man, and a barbed wire wreath crowning the head of lamb figurine on the other. But I keep returning too to this swirl, this dip, this rise of veil from the chimney glancing over the hills.
The trees grieve, sap running clear, tears trickling down.
The neighbor from behind, whose grandparents took that plot of land from the Crown, when the willow by the pond was but a seedling, rings the bell at the back stoop, arms full of six bags for the half dozen lit eyes that live here. As the children unwrap crosses of chocolate, she and I talk of that thread of gray smoke stitching up through the branches and limbs in the woods that roll there.
“Oh, and I am almost out of syrup.” She says the words to me, but her eyes are on that curl twining up the sky.
Night falls and around the table we eat the lamb, pass the heft of iron nails from one palm to another, pray stunned thanks, hushed. In the darkening blue of twilight I look out across the fields to the woods, remembering the signs. But the sugar shack sits empty now, still in coming dark.
Ringing flickering flames, we gather on old wood floor, once living trees, towels spread about, basins full of water warm to the touch. Bare feet slip into wet and hands make shadows on the floors, the walls, as they gently bathe tired heels, massage beads of toes. This is the footwashing, doing as He has done to us.
The quiet ebbs away as songs, hymns, ride in, shy and tentative, as we towel dry. And then this song carried in on young voices,
“You shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace, the mountains and hills shall break forth before you,
There will be shouts of joy, and all the trees of the fields will clap, will clap their hands.
And all the trees of the fields will clap their hands, the trees of the fields will clap their hands,
the trees of the fields will clap their hands as you go out with joy.”
I watch our shadows on the walls, candlelight lengthening us, and think of stretching shadows deep in the woods. Do the trees clap too in this black before Easter’s dawn?
The cantata raises hearts, church roof, come Resurrection morning. Country church swells with thanks. We soar home, past maples lining gravel lanes. Silver buckets, gleaming in sunlight, hang from spigots nailed deep.
What flows from the Tree runs sweet.
We bottle it up and all year, drink, supplied.
Lord, the blood that coursed down the Tree, from the veins of Him who hung by the nails, it supplies all our needs. So we live by it.
Photos: from Easter weekend
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