While it was still dark
we grabbed our cups of warm beverages
and set off down the nearly-empty street,
the watchful eye of the half-moon
looking out from the sky growing bluer every moment. 

Everyone on the beach is a silhouette,
recognition made harder by the masks we wear.
But somehow we know each other by the choice to be present
here
in the cold dawn on the colder sand. 

The singing starts. 
It’s more muffled this year,
but not even thirteen months of pandemic 
will silence us altogether. 

We watch the horizon 
where a band of cloud
meets the placid water,
and I wonder
what we’ll actually be able to see this year. 

We sing the sky to brightness, 
and the first streaks of color break through: 
jagged lines,
like stretch marks
where the whole world has been waiting to give birth
to this particular morning
in this particular place
with these particular people shouting
“Alleluia!”

And indeed the sun does crown the cloudy horizon.
And a child marvels at just how big it is.
And the lake reflects the glowing red
into a path of light,
a pillar of fire guiding the way
into liberation.
Death has lost its sting, 
and God has arisen
in the swimming muskrat
and the calling seagulls
and the little boys gleefully kicking sand
as the round stone of the sun rolls higher into the sky,
as the pillar of fire grows too bright to look at
and sinks slowly into the water
where it becomes the promised land.