It’s Friday, people, but Sunday’s comin’.
Woke up in a haze, or a haz-mat suit
made of twisted flannel sheets,
can’t recall now, but it sure was dark.
Of course, I just had to bring up the subject of
tax returns with myself. It’s tomorrow, dad-burn!
My window wasn’t like the picture when I looked out,
rain streaking down, seeping under the sill,
but my friend sent me this and pow!
I could remember Sunday–that one
in California, where the apple trees were
having their best photo op ever,
and forsythia was shouting yellow pyrotechnics,
though failing spectacularly to outdo the red tulips and
blue squill and yellow jonquils by the road.
God! that day sunlight was streaming down
like melted butter on blueberry pancakes,
falling out of the sky like Maundy money,*
just generally behaving like Resurrection Sunday,
which it was anyway. The old white clapboard church,
even though it needed paint, was clapping its boards,
looking as bright against the apple blossoms
in the mild blue sky as Gabriel’s trumpet.
When I looked at that window in the photo,
raspberry/blueberry caramel
glowing like it was stained glass,
sweet April breeze blowing without benefit of screens,
with sunlight pumping through like showtime,
and God-is-back and hell has jumped
into its handbasket and run away quick,
I just had to bust out singing!
Honey, it may be Friday, with all the sick and sad,
with coffins and worry and hunger and no pay for months,
all that thick and tarry as hot asphalt pouring in August.
It may be even worse. But I gotta tell ya,
looking out that window tells me–
Sunday’s comin’!
© 2020 Susanne Donoghue
*Maundy money is alms given to the poor on Maundy Thursday by Queen Elizabeth (not in person of course) in place of foot-washing, which went out of favor when the REALLY poor showed up.