POEMS IN HOLY WEEK i. Sunday - A girl skips by

In spite of knowing the date of Easter for this year for some time, I was still surprised to discover that today was Palm Sunday.
          At one time I would have known about this Sunday some time in advance and would have prepared for it.  When I was younger I used to go up to the vicar during the Palm Sunday service and get a palm cross which I used to pin above my bed having written the year of the palm on the top bit.
          As I grew older Holy Week became more significant for me and I used to go to the Good Friday three-hour service and listen to the sermons!  I think I fancied myself as something of a theologian, and perhaps I still do to a certain extent - but my religious faith has not accompanied me into later life.
          The shock of not knowing the significance of the day, the sight of a little girl with an ornate palm decoration and a lasting interest in religion prompted this poem
          I have set myself the task of writing a series of poems during this week.  I am not going to assume that I can produce one a day, but I will do my best to think about each day using the contemplative nature of a version of Holy Week to guide my thought or at least to give them a particular sort of spin.
          This is the first poem.

Poems in Holy Week

i.         Sunday - A girl skips by

At first I thought she held,

perhaps, a lollipop kebab;

a fairy wand; beribboned

like a playschool sceptre;

stick for fools to liven up

a masquerade. 

                       And then

I saw some other girls with

things much more Baroque,

and realised this was Palm

Sunday and constructions

complications of the simple

cross, made from a single frond,

that I pinned up (religiously)

each year above my bed. 

How things have changed that

such a day can creep

right up on me, un-sensed,

like ordinary time!

And now I wallow

in my lack of faith

and idly consider

how that affirmation of belief

(in one week’s time)

that, ‘Christ is risen!’

gets no four-word answer

from my mouth –

which is as empty

as the tomb will be.