JACK’S FIRST HOLY COMMUNION
I tremble at the sublimity of the lesson.
What Jesus was teaching.
How he rang the bell of our mortality
and understood,
it was not our lives at stake,
but our children, and our children’s children,
and my beloved next to me,
who took a train not knowing our destination.
Jesus poured compassion into a cup,
his hands aching, and said,
drink this in remembrance of me.
And the bell of his life resonating in ours.
The evening supper goes on,
and he is saying, again and again,
do not let your hearts become
disconnected from your souls.
We are creation.
We honor each other with this communion.
Bread is the sustenance for our
living and dying.
The wine is the millennia, and God’s asking,
do not forget each other in your prayers,
and my embrace of each of you in love.