Blush of Dawn

Sunday Mass.  I admire the many Easter lilies lined up along the altar.  Jesus, alive and awake, wears a white cloth, his arms outstretched in an embrace.  Stronger than my neighbor’s perfume, a hundred candles fill the room with sweetness.  The lady ahead of me holds out her Sunday Missal, a plastic Saint Anthony prayer card on the pew.  The organist sings out, “Alleluia!” into a crackling microphone.  The rest of us softly sing “Alleluia” and then kneel to pray.  The little child next to me leaps up and down on the kneeling bench.  Up and down, up and down he goes.  By the time we get to the second verse of Joyful, Joyful, half the church has filed out.   A motorcyclist speeds up to the red light.  On the front lawn beside the swaying violets, a stone Saint Teresa.