Bread

　
Whatever you have done,
wherever you may go,
your life takes you,
from nights in stone church ruins
by moonlight,
to afternoons wrestling loneliness
in a curtained room,

take from me the best I have to share,
elements of Easter morning;
a loaf of bread,
a cup of wine,
an invitation to prayer,
a sinuous climbing vine
encircling a slender tree,

As I prayed fervently, writing this to you,
sitting by the river,
suddenly a forest patriarch
nearby, as if pushed by a giant hand,
cracked powerfully and fell,

a giant tree
shaking the earth--
amazed, i saw it fall, felt it,
not a breath of wind,
I heard in the cracking roar,
it was rotten to the core;

without warning, falling, all the
kingdoms of this world;

yet stands the best I have to share,
promises in him of bread and wine and life;

in all the dark chaos coming,
you shall be another kind of tree,
planted by rivers of water;
bearing fruit in your season,
your leaf shall not wither.
Receive this blessing
from one who blesses me.