Holy Week (2020)

On Holy Wednesday

(which was also the first night of Passover

and the Sleepless Night of Shab-e-barat)

in the middle of the great pandemic

Bernie Sanders announced

he was conceding his run for President

and as we cried into our breakfast

the pigeons on our back stoop

were finishing their nest

On Holy Thursday

(the Day of the Last Supper)

vast fields of tomatoes, squash, and green beans

rotted in the Florida sun

and prisoners in Cook County Jail

after losing a second brother to coronavirus

posted signs in the windows of their cells reading

Help, No Supply and We're Dying

and the Labor Department reported
over 6.6 million Americans

filed for unemployment in one week

and a pop-up pantry in L.A. drew a mile-long line of cars

and the President repeated his call for the country to reopen in early May
(despite the virus claiming a new life every 47 seconds

and the number of us who have been tested remaining well under 1%)

and on Capitol Hill, senators failed to agree
on a second round of COVID-19 relief

and meanwhile, on our stoop

in the little nest tucked behind the red sneakers

under the shelter of the rolled up carpet

leaning against the brick wall

we found a little cream-white egg

On Good Friday

(the day of the crucifixion)

Manhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital abruptly did not partner

with Evangelical charitable organization Samaritan's Purse

to set up nine medical tents for overflow patients

in the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, as planned

telling news outlets they were reprioritizing resources

(though it may have had something to do with the ongoing controversy

around the Trumpian relief group's anti-gay statement of faith

and the church's plan to hang a Pride flag over the doors of the Cathedral)

in any case the field hospital was not set up

and we sat on our stoop and prayed outside with the pigeons

(the large gray male during the day

who hopped off the egg and sat on the wooden railing cooing

– to draw our eyes away from the nest? –

and the small dark female who sat on her egg

quietly during the night shift)

On Holy Saturday

(the day there was no God on Earth)

another egg appeared

And on Sunday,

as the Pope gave his Easter homily
to an empty St. Peter's Basilica,

and everyday folks around Chicago

brought food and set up pop-up kitchens

for tent encampments around the city

(cooking steaks and frying chicken wings)

and a new squatter house opened up in our neighborhood
and calls for rent strikes and rent freezes went viral on the web

and Emily and Dan celebrated the arrival of a new house puppy

You and I awoke with spirits renewed

(having wept and laughed through the night before)

and ate waffles for breakfast

and afterwards sat outside and again prayed with the pigeons

that their eggs would safely hatch

and the squabs live to fly

for the courage it takes to place faith in new life

and guard our vision of the good world

that we'd like to give to our children

and for the contagion of hope

to catch from heart to heart

faster than the virus

faster than the fear

for a victory that does not bypass suffering and death,

but passes through them,
opening a path in the abyss

transforming sorrow into joy

and slavery into freedom