As I puttered around the house, getting ready for an Easter Sunday dinner, I thought back over the years to a time when this holiday was more meaningful to me than it is today, and created this verse:

Sunrise Service

In the crisp bite of early dawn

Roused by the ever loyal mom

To a warm breakfast then driven to a school rendezvous on the way

To play Jesus Christ is Risen Today .

Up and through the dark back road to old Flag Hill above the Saw Mill

We were driven, six chosen musicians to play fanfare

Celebrating the resurrection of  long ago as first rays of dawn broke the chill.

After we played our  brassy peal of annunciation

The pastor announced simply, “He has risen” and said an invocation,

On the downbeat from our instructor,

We played the joyous hymn and song burst forth

From the tiny band, voices vibrant beyond talent

Took up the simple refrain, “Je US CHRIST has riSEN toDAAY”

With each verse our  brass tones played fuller, bolder triumphant

Expanding our chests with pride, courage and steadfast  melody.

From crisp wind no longer did we cower.

Sun blaze rose in the east across our town,

Upon the last jubilant coda, the echoes  did sound

Descending across the valley below  and above to the high tension tower

In somber words the pastor’s message told the story

Of empty tomb, of the incredible happening

And for the rest of the day we who had played

Announcing the news in song and peal of brass

Had recreated that time of myth that has endured in faith

The thought of which renews us still that our time here will not from memory pass.

In the holiday dinner that would follow,

Cousins, aunts and uncles would gather

With the matriarch of the family.

Today we are scattered,

Do not gather together as we did then in harmony

Still I feel the warmth of those Easters past

When those who have departed we think of once more

And how they created a family that would last.