Road

The Road

Were not our hearts burning within us

while he talked with us on the road…

 (Luke 24:32)

Late, on the first day of the week, Cleopas and I

hung fire on the Emmaus road, stopped to talk

and rest our cramped legs by a bank of wild, climbing

roses that weren’t even blooming as we walked

that way the week before (little did we know how,

that day, plants all over Judea burst mysteriously

into bloom under a sudden morning rain).  Our boots

caked with mud, so dejectedly we cleaned them

by the rose-bank, retelling the bewildering tales

burned in our heads:  Angels shining like white bolts

of light, saying, “He has risen!  Come and see

the place where he lay!”—those crazed, thunderstruck

women stumbling into the meeting room, smelling

like spilled spice, babbling about angelic earthquakes

and the inhuman stone rolled to the side, the grave

open wide as a mortal wound—even Peter stooped

in the musty tomb, holding pieces of linen grave-

cloth like a puzzle of Jesus he could not deny.

Dark deepening, we slumped back to the wet road,

unable to believe what our own eyes had not seen.

Ten steps toward home and a cloaked man appeared

from nowhere, as if he stepped out of the rose-bank

itself, and—his voice—arose from the very fragrance

and redness of fresh roses.  Our sadness apparent,

we answered questions about the mighty Nazarene

who spoke the dead to life; we told of ringing hammers

on a bald hill, four soldiers terrified by the forsaken

sun—their tiny, impromptu fire.  Speaking kindly,

but with authority, rebuking some coldness in us,

the hooded man unveiled, scroll by scroll, prophecies

about the Christ:  “Behold a virgin will be with child—

A shoot springing from Jesse’s stem will bear fruit—

Like a rose of Sharon, the Messiah will bloom, a lily

among the thorns—On the day of his coming, He

will refine the nations with consuming fire—Bruised

and cursed, He will crush the serpent’s scaley head.”

Even then, we sensed how he pealed back the black

petals of our unbelieving hearts—how his words

burned like bright coals in the dark pits of our minds.

At the door of our house, not able to let such hope

pass on, we asked him to stay for supper and sleep.

While I set the table, Cleopas arranged a rosette

of damp wood in the hearth, the fire catching barely,

smoking and popping to life.  Seated, the man

we almost knew insisted on praying and breaking

bread:  it was the way he held the loaf, the motion

reversed, thumbs starting out on top, pushing down

in the middle, the slow falling of underside crumbs,

and—then—the up-turned backs of the hands—

holding broken bread—there—through the backs

of the hands—the holes—in those wonderful hands—

more glorious than roses and fire.  Cleopas gasped,

and—like smoke vanishing in tongues of flame,

like a bud disappearing in the flower’s full bloom—

He was gone.  And the hard brown pieces of bread

bounced once near the butter on the table top.