New Moon over Emmaus
As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But
they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost
evening and the day is now nearly over." So he went in to stay with
them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They
said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was
talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
- Luke 24:28-35
A new moon over Emmaus and in the spacious dark sky
the waning and waxing of an old story forgotten
you know the one where the unfamiliars walk and talk
and share bread and wine and humble deep laughter
where hospitality and conviviality become the norm
and the sacred is tasted and touched in daily routine
where war stories and scar stories are voiced beyond the
pain
and the memory of courage eclipses panic and pride
where archetypal hopes of liberation and a world refreshed
rise again like the warming of alcohol in a red cheek flush
So why is it that just when we get it again fly-by-night Jesus
in the breaking and pouring and dining and singing
does it all disappear through a fissure in the evening air
and you wrench us out to find it with some other wayfarer
not just here and now, never settled or fixed in rubrics
we would incant and enact in a Mobius movement nowhere
but like you, always rising and walking on and out hungry
for the next meal where strangers become divine companions
Keep us in phase with your lunatic ways Jesus of broken
bread
so like the moon we and your wild twilight dream of God
can be new, can sliver some reflection of your light
can spin and orbit and elate into full glow and aura
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