Bread and wine in wild communion
are tethered to the table Sabbath day
unleashed in the children’s sober reunion
and there it will not, will not, stay.
This bread touches doorknobs, hands and faces,
papers, phones, crumbles to the floor.
Children run with crumbly praises
spraying crumbs they ask for more.
In the laughter of God I cannot have it.
This shade stands back and waits for the day
when my Brother will fit my tent for it
till then I sit back and watch the bread play.
The wrecking bread and ruinous wine.
It will kill you if you spat at the table
It is more real , more good, more true.
It sits as solid as word and stable.
Your place is preserved with this in view
Welcome here at the Siege Perilous.
Sit. Your name is engraved in stone.
You do not threaten, steal, or devour
With bread so real, It can not be done.
Brothers sit down under Father’s eye
Serving a meal, passing the bread
Blood and body, bread and wine
And it will kill you, kill you dead.
As it gets everywhere, everywhere, everywhere
This grave has a back door swinging wide.
You can’t excuse yourself before He’s done
feeding you, readying you to work at his side.
It goes into you, and the race you must run.
Week in and week out, the meal is served
For first a thousand, then two thousand years,
All the world feasts on the bread undeserved,
From the grain crushed, beaten, and shirred.
Here at this table, you have heaven folded
In just a bite to three measures of life.
It works through your bones and your sinews remolded,
Carving you, carving you up with a knife.
As it gets everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.
Men with bad manners, smack their lips
and it echoes, sloshy and loud in our hall.
Children reach out, and take slurpy sips
Of the wine, poured for them, poured for us,
poured for all.
No condemnation here, none, leave it out.
Stop wiggling. Receive the gift handed to you.
Sit down. Chew the bread, crumbling about,
This is your dinner, no Accuser’s stew.
Supper is eaten in absolute silence,
That is the test of truly good food.
Starving, we share with our siblings around us
Filling our bodies, frail and rude.
And so he keeps feeding us, feeding us, feeding us.
The adamant bread. The sea deep wine.
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