Life Rushes In

A Poem by Susan Delaney Spear 

Week Two

I risk a trip
to Krogers
for essentials:
milk, bread,
eggs, bananas. 
Shoppers smile
six feet wary
and swallow the urge
to cough, converse.
            A sneeze – 
we freeze.
            A green plant
droops, a shamrock
on clearance. A bargain
wasting away
at ninety-nine cents.
Moved by the hunger
to heal, my gloved
hand selects
this least-of-these
items and places
it in my cart
beside the bread.

 
Related Thoughts by Pastor Bruce

A couple of weeks ago we had a heavy snow, and I saw out the window that our lilac bush was so flattened and weighed down that I didn’t think it would ever recover.

So imagine my surprise when on this warm April day I went out and saw the bush had not only survived but had put out bright new green leaves, ready to blossom with lilacs this summer. Spring is here, reminding me as the Psalmist says that “weeping may tarry for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5)

As surely as the cold darkness of Winter is followed by the warm life of Spring, as surely as a wilted shamrock on the clearance shelf is now thriving in our kitchen window, as surely as a snow-flattened lilac bush springs back to life in a flurry of new leaves, as surely as weeping which tarries for a night is followed by joy in morning, as surely as God always follows his “no” with a resounding “yes,” as surely as Good Friday gives way to Easter Sunday when death gave way to resurrection life, this strange season of isolation and fear will give way to a new day when “life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid, fuller than before!” (Anne Morrow Lindbergh)