Exalted or Worthy of Complete Devotion

A friend observes that it feels like Cloudsday, March 43rd. But today is Easter.

This morning we’ll eat sweet rolls sent by my mom. Normally: oatmeal. Martin makes the best—cinnamon, molasses, and a banana stirred in until it basically vanishes. The same pot every day, with the same wooden spoon, smoothed from use, its hemisphere worn.

When it’s gone, I will miss every molecule.

Outside the flowers brazenly flaunt their genitalia. Crocuses nod their purple heads like Yes.

They say that anyone can make a wooden spoon—all you need is a piece of wood, a knife, and desire.

Most wooden spoons are made of birch-tree, beechwood, maple, or oak. Holy alliance of carved and carver.

Supposedly, ovenbirds and warblers cry, “Teach-er, teach-er!”

I am searching for some kind of holy instruction.

According to the Eastern Orthodox Church, the cross Jesus hung from was made of three woods: cedar, pine, and cypress. (Coniferous trees ill-suit utensils because of their softness and evergreen scent.)

According to everyone else, the True Cross was dogwood. God made the sturdy tree grow small and twisty, never to be used to that end again.

Why not use materials that improve with age? Trees map time, even rendered into objects.

The Catholic Church reaches out her arms to embrace her followers. I’m not a big hugger. I do click “like” on the Pope’s tweet: “Dear brothers and sisters, indifference, self-centeredness, division, and forgetfulness are not words we want to hear at this time. We want to ban these words for ever!”

Emotion adheres not just to objects, but objects in relation to other objects. “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know when it will be too late.” Ralph Waldo Emerson said that, or something like it. Am I becoming a sentimental fool?

I must be getting old. I hope you are too.

I should go into the kitchen now. I should thank that spoon.