Happy Easter Mr. Kraft
in 2015
he stopped
just like that
in a blink …
it was over
he stopped
not because
he wanted to
no
but because
he had to
the shell of his body
no longer worked
the way it used to
like when he was a boy
and he could climb trees for days
no problem
in Easter 1965
there were two
twig-like trees in his backyard
and he hung 18 plastic eggs on them
in Easter 1994
he added 332 to the 18
and then
many, many, many years later
he would use a ladder
to hang his eggs
all 10,000
on his backyard tree
no longer plastic
but real
hand-painted Easter eggs
one by one
he would hang them
off the limbs
of his crabapple tree
10,000 Easter eggs dripping off a crabapple tree
in the snow
is a sight to behold
it’s different than a Christmas tree
all lit up with ornaments
an egg
symbolizes re-birth
renewal
10,000 eggs made him happy
made his family happy
made his neighbors happy
made his country of Germany happy
made people around the world
happy
they came to visit his crabapple tree
babies and toddlers and school-children and teenagers and college students
and young adults and the middle-aged and the silver-aged and the golden-aged
such a simple thing
really
to hang an egg on a tree
and yet it can be
the one thing you did in your life
that really mattered
that meant something
somehow
Happy Easter to you
Mr. Volker Kraft
your tree
made me very happy
indeed
thank you for hanging an egg
on a tree
TL