Sly Stone and Other Easter Characters

And didn’t the eyes of Zechariah burn with a new light?
gazing on those common cooking pots and horse bells,
seeing Holy-to-the-Lord, blaze itself onto the quotidian,
his inventory overturned, unbound, suddenly fluid.

And Peter too — forgiven, by one who had risen,
now shaken by an all-inclusive vision,
quaking in the greening comprehension,
had cried, the dream in waiting has arrived.

He’d seen the in-gathering of everyday people,
the sacredness of all breath and breathless things,
saw the Spirit of God, through bejeweled heavens, go riding,
singing joy to the world, pulling us all into the ring of dance,
giving our varied voices wondrous wings — a harvest of harmony.

But how hard it is to transpose the new song.
How hard to find our meaning beyond division.
Easier to stay safe on the pious side of a conjured line,
and call our exacting ability to classify and codify,
the gift of discernment.

Easier to be over and above, than to love;
easier to breach than to merge;
easier to preach than converge, easier
to have faith, in abstract, than work to create
a supple communion, beyond our brittle us-and-them.

And back at the Temple, we sweep out the odd
and ungainly, the queer and the quirky,
all those mismatched colours onto the coarse ground,
keeping our holy, holy, our profane, profane.

And now, as I write, Sly and the Family Stone
comes pop-funk-soul rocking over these café speakers,
singing, Everyday People.

At a near table, a woman in a purple scarf and red top,
smiles, remembers, starts to sing,
            There is a blue one who can’t accept
            the green one for living with a black one…
            and so on and so on… Ooo sha sha…
            we gotta live together.

First band to mix race and gender,
Family Stone climbed the stage and danced
their kaleido-delic diversity onto the human plane.

(But alright, we’re still in our swaddling clothes,
needing to designate days, places, things, holy,
so to coax our memories with coordinates
through which we might seize the encompassing reality,
and by this, liturgy, hope to become what we are.)

Ahead of the game, Sly, Peter, Zachariah, knew the aim,
knew that every day is Easter,
knew that all time is ordinary — and kissed holy,
knew that everyday people are every day — kissed holy.

Sly And The Family Stone, Everyday People (1969)