the easter revolution

The easter revolution will not be televised.
It is not captured on CCTV
because it is captured in the heart
It is not a big event in history.
(It is too big for history.
And also too small.)

The easter revolution is a beautiful disguise.
It is brought to you by a woman in a flowing green dress
facing down the riot police
And a shirtsleeved man standing before a line of tanks.
But also in the patience of the person serving you
On the checkout at Tesco
And your neighbours love for her child,
the one people name ‘different’.
It is brought to you by those who are seldom heard
and routinely overlooked
In the fields, someone picking coffee,
On the sea, someone in an exodus,
And in the forest, a nun, gunned down
For protecting the trees, while reciting the Beatitudes,
‘We’re not burying you,’ say her fellow revolutionaries,
at the funeral, ‘We’re planting you.’

No-one notices as the subtle bud rises defiantly from the earth,
Or as the man, turns away from the powerful and kneels
To write something in the sand.
It is the quietest sound, this revolution,
It is almost not there,
Like that ever flowing stream,
Somewhere,
Not far from here

The easter revolution takes no-one by force,
except the force of love
which is no force at all,
(and the greatest force of all).
It is the revolution we long for
but can’t quite name
the one that is undated because it is every date that ever was
the one that is usually unseen but always,
at every moment,
hiding in plain sight.

(A poem written for the sleeve notes of The Easter Revolution, a new collection of songs by Garth Hewitt. Painting by Malak Mattar from Gaza, ‘When peace dies, embrace it. It will live again’.)