WE WILL SPEND Easter eve afloat at our prayers, I tell them. We'll have mass on the rocks at daybreak. They sleep like rocks themselves. I sit in the bows and watch the moon glint white in the flat pool.
At first sunlight we tuck up our cloaks and wade ashore through the shallow surf. The shepherd's loaf serves as Thy white body, his wine for Thy dark blood. A choir of wings flutters over us. I feel a fluttering behind my eyes as well. Perhaps it's the wine. We've been fasting three full days.
"O jubilate! O jubilo!" cry the five of us to the wind. Our beards blow free.
Clown Crosan picks stones off the beach. He juggles them grave-faced.
"They blocked him in his grave with stones like these. They might as well have used eggs," says he.
He follows their curved path through the air with his eyes.
"Whoopsa! Now you don't see him, now you do!" he cries. "Fresh as dawn rose he. There's no such ugly thing at all as death for them as have their sunrise life from him."
He lets the stones fall to his feet in a heap.
"Huzzah for clown Christ!" cries he. He tosses his hat in the air. "Huzzah for our precious lovely zany!"
We all throw our hats in the air save hatless Colman.
"O kittiwake Christ!" cries Colman. "Peck Heaven open wide, dear heart, to all that yearn for Thee!"
- Originally published in Brendan
