Last Supper

Soon there will be no more bread like this –
baked in ovens, crusted brown
and formed from grain planted by sweating men,
later garnered in the setting sun,
then pounded,
as women hummed snatches of old songs
beneath the human's sky.

Soon that blue, those tunes,
the sweat, the oaths,
the laughter
will be turned to Something Else
the humans have not yet glimpsed.

Soon there will be no more wine like this –
grapes crushed, stain spreading where they spilled;
once hanging beneath a human's sun,
green leaves moving in an earthly breeze
as girls and boys – teasing –
cut or snatched the fragrance from the vines.

Soon there will be no lazy stories,
muffled laughs
as men sit in the night and drink
and talk of dreams long buried
and hope now growing
near the candle of their love.

Soon it will all turn to Something Else
the men, the women,
the girls, the boys have not yet glimpsed;
a place, a time, a space
where babies do not cry
to then be held against warm breasts;
where children do not fall and hurt;
where fathers bend to comfort them;
where young love does not speak with eyes
across a table, room or road
and fingers do not reach to touch, caress.

Where sisters do not answer pain with hugs
and gentle tears;
where brothers do not hold each other
for precious moments of remembered joy;
where no lamb leaps,
no daisy bends to feel the rain,
no kitten curls into a ball
nor dog lies at work-worn feet.
Where bird and rose,
where cow and calf
no longer live in fields warm with sun,
dark with night,
on a planet the humans call their earth.

Soon there will be the bloodstain,
                      the tear stain,
                      the cry to Father,
and the human grief You can not yet mend
as women weep beside your grave.

Later, the Easter dawn will heal
and send You in Ascension –
holding Hope;
and then
in that Someplace Else
the humans have not yet glimpsed,
You will remember human bread,
human wine,
and them.

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