What they do after

After Luke 24:28-35

After the bread is taken,

after the bread is blessed

and broken,

after the bread is given,

after the bread forces

the remembrance,

after the vanishing,

after they sit stunned,

they remember the journey.

They remember hearts

burning as they talked

and listened, kindled

by the stranger,

they remember the word

opened as he talked,

and they know,

suddenly, abruptly.

In the darkness they rise

and return, to find

the followers, to tell]

the followers the story

of the road, the story

of the remembering

and the vanishing,

the story of the breaking

of the bread.

Photograph by Raychan via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Stranger on the road

After Luke 24:28-35

They meet a stranger

on the road, and they

talk, walk together

to the village 

in the west. They talk

of what had happened,

momentous things,

surprising the stranger

with intensity, conviction,

as they tell their story

incomplete in the fading light

and growing shadows 

of the dying day. He moves

to leave them, but he stays.

They eat, and the stranger,

in a strange communion,

takes the bread,

blesses the bread,

breaks the bread,

gives the bread. 

The bread is an act

of remembrance,

opening their eyes

in time to see

the stranger vanish.