After Luke 22:31-34
It’s a play in three acts.
First, the warning,
a demand to sift
a disciple like wheat,
to show what
little wheat and what
great chaff is there,
a demand countered
by a prayer for faith
to endure; followed
by an assigned mission
to strengthen the faithful
when the crisis passes.
Act 2: the bravado,
the claim of readiness
to follow to prison,
to follow to death,
the claim stated
with the courage
of not knowing
how close were both.
And then Act 3:
the prediction,
the certainty
of denial,
the certainty
that courage
would fail,
coupled with
the sign to expect
a rooster to crow
not once but
three times.
Photograph by Hulki Okan Tabak via Unsplash. Used with permission.
