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