feast

i've been watching my neighbors hose down sidewalks, wipe off patio furniture, lug beer, and set up tables for days now.
it's the feast of the assumption.

i pulled out my picnic blanket this morning and sat with henry on our lawn--waiting for an hour or more before the procession came by our house. we watched family greetings, children running up and down the street.

i asked my neighbor, "what does the feast celebrate?"

"i don't know," she said. "it's hard to keep track of those things."
she wiped her hand on her apron that looked like an italian flag: her name embroidered across the top. she's been making meatballs and stuffed peppers and pasta and pasta and pasta. her family is coming--sons and daughters and their sons and daughters and more and more sons and daughters and they will sit on her porch for five days and eat and drink and smoke and laugh and celebrate the assumption.

and me and henry just watched from behind our little chain link fence. wondering who this mary is that gets such an interesting type of devotion: her life celebrated by meatballs steeped in garlic and peppers stuffed with sausage and people soaked with wine.

she must be related to the man whose birth we celebrate with trees and foilage and ham and giant socks stuffed with toothbrushes and oranges.