Thursday is for Imperfect Prose: Bread of Life
Another poem in which I try to flatter Luci Shaw
by imitating her.
Bread of Life
No, He is too quick. We never
by imitating her.  |
| On the Table, Bread Joan Bohlig |
Bread of Life
No, He is too quick. We never
got to say thanks. He was there
closer breath than our mourning prayer.
Remembering
backward, we can not imagine how
we did not recall His voice.
Even if we heard back then
those three years plus seven miles of teaching
those three years plus seven miles of teaching
how would we retell the new-breathed meaning His
words made Word raised upward in the air
with all His strong bones executing
every law letter? or the strange
bright tales sprouting
through crusted-over faith
like just-activated beads of yeast? Who could
preach the words into man's heart
as the Spirit comes close enough to raise
to life the decaying rot inside? Who will
diagram the hermaneutic
of redemption, the cadence of re-birth?
or digestively analyze rhetoric
made flesh? or chew through
propositions as they moisten in the cup
passed 'round? Will anyone sit beside
the broken loaf? and stir the bloody
grapey liquid? and explain
the symbol or substance
telling truth that no sermon made us recognize?
Enough. Refrain.
Digest a finished work. Repeat.
Today -- another wordless sermon -- the ingested
doctrines of our faith made plain
the Christ we need to know.
propositions as they moisten in the cup
passed 'round? Will anyone sit beside
the broken loaf? and stir the bloody
grapey liquid? and explain
the symbol or substance
telling truth that no sermon made us recognize?
Enough. Refrain.
Digest a finished work. Repeat.
Today -- another wordless sermon -- the ingested
doctrines of our faith made plain
the Christ we need to know.
