Saturday, June 12, 2021

"After the Flare and Flame"

 

After the Flare and Flame

 The Road to Emmaus: Luke 24: 13 -32

 We knew it no longer mattered

                                                      how we stumbled

away from the gushing women

                                                          and

our brothers who were no longer ashamed

to weep

 

If we walked twice the seven miles to home

we would

 

Anything to exhaust the rage

                                                     before we were crushed

and as empty as he said he found the cave

 

Burning everywhere    our eyes   our throats

our lungs

                   my skin was dry enough to peel

with the merest touch

                                                     enough

 

What stoked this fire   was fear

 

Neither of us noticed

                                         or cared

to see the stranger nearly upon us

 

His first words startled me

reawakening the rage that had

                                                           almost

settled like ashes  after the flare and flame

 

The confrontation took us both into a howling

threatening storm of words

                                                    Until he twisted us free

of the knots that had strangled us  these last

fearful days

 

How could we be blind

                                            how

could we not hear the voice that will now

forever  hold us  still

 

                                       Our hunger shifted

from needing  protective enveloping dark

 into the memory of his mother

handing us bread so many nights

 

When he broke the bread

                                                he brought us

from the tomb where we had cowered

 

And now we can do   

                                      as he had done

and will always do

 

give that bread to all

 

-- Luke

 

Dedicated and offered as a gift to a group of men bringing their light into an all-too-shadowy world. For the ordination of newly ordained priests:  Ajani Gibson (for the Archdiocese of New Orleans); and for the Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus: Thomas Bambrick; Jeffrey Dorr; Garrett Gundlach; Robert Karle; Aaron Malnick; Hung T. Nguyen; Trevor Rainwater; and Jeffrey Sullivan.

 

5 comments:

  1. Startling images that haunt a mere walk with the Holy One. Thank you for this gift of image and form!

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  2. Thank you Joseph for this new speaking of the disciples conversion.

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  3. Writing this on the first Juneteenth that this country is finally coming to acknowledge. We are not beyond the "fire and Flame," remembering all the mothers and and fathers who broke their backs to put bread on their tables. Unlike his voice, "that would forever hold us still," we have not heard enough of the voices that need to speak their unspoken rage...our burning is everywhere and our skins need to feel the parch. May we in the end know the way to soothe in the manner of the Holy One. Thank you, Joseph

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  4. Oh, my, how striking and strongly: to walk that walk daily! Thank you!

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