The Older Brother’s

        Easter Advice *

Plead ignorance.

You get more crap

for another year, long

after the secular kids

are making do with a candy bar

or that little bag of M&M’s

we get in everyday checkout lines.

Be their child

of stealthy habits

and you get to hear things—

more clues about why

we are on this earth.

Faith makes sweet rewards

for children like you.

© Terry McLain

   

          * previously appeared  on  Wedpoetry.net

Special effects

A bell rings, then the choir, in royal blue and white 

passes beneath vaulted arches, intoning chant. Above,

prim white walls rise drenched in color from the tiffany

stained glass, an intricate, constructed beauty.

Meticulously kept robes of  the priests rustle in scarlet

or purple brocade. Their large pale hands finger prayer books

or inlaid shepherd’s crooks, or thin white tapers in season

little flames bobbing and waxless, passed from candle to candle.

Some days priests wash the feet of reluctant aisle sitters, 

or on hands and knees kiss floors or altars or replicas of the cross,

read from hand-illumined books  with perfect embroidered covers,

or offer a last supper with gold utensils, twirl smoking gold sensors

into a holy cloud, ring little bells, and wait, then nod as the

expensive  Ph.D-candidate organist checks the rear-view mirror

on the new electronic organ,  $185,000-worth of Celestine circuitry

concealing a pipe organ, a bell tower and a full orchestra within.

Parishioners kneel, tuck away six days of doubt, as the bass cantor

from the New York City Opera lets peal a near-replica

of the voice of divinity from the loft overhead.

© Mistryel Walker