(for Maundy Thursday)
This is the moment that faces many ways:
A dozen men
looking backward and facing the comfort of history
the gentle remembrances
the ritual of familiar things
the benevolent God who delivers his people
a meal that speaks history in every crumb.
The promise of a new order of things
where peace and justice rule.
This is the moment that faces many ways:
A recent history, more turbulent;
the noisy exuberance on a journey into Jerusalem,
crowdly accolades and the remembrance of scriptures.
Then the storming of the fortress of the privileged;
strewing tables, scattering animals and temple coinage
in a rage that was not anger
but the raising of a flag of war.
A dozen men as uncertain of yesterday
as they are of tomorrow.
This is the moment that faces many ways:
The end of the beginning, the beginning of the end,
the promise of a tomorrow cloaked in pain and separation.
A wondrous, horrible, day
when the robber of souls claims a victory
and darkness grips its noisy festivity
in the abyss of time.
