Meanings of flour ground on heavy stones
To spill on the threshing floor, scattered in dust,
Where mice track it into the dark, or it sticks
To men’s boots while the barnyard jigs to a fiddle;
To small toes that climb a ladder to find
That the crying in the haymow is not
actually cats
Nor crying at all, but delight of Rumschpringe.
Not
so different, perhaps, from the loafered feet
That
drag on the steps to a chilly court
Where
a cheated man deeds his wife to the state;
From
loud heels profaning the wrath of holy silence
After
a child falls from the window, or from grace;
From
the aged shuffle of a crabbed old man, world-weary because his dog has died:
For all, they have walked in thorns and
sweat,
And ploughed their brows with the harrow of grief.
But
man does not suffer for bread alone
And
not every child is better stillborn
For
the grain that falls to the ground and dies
Finds
substance in the dust and will bear much fruit,
And
the cup of sorrow is wrung of the vine
That
feeds the Cup of Blessing.
Thus the steadfast Word cried from broken ground
Saying,
“This is my body, my blood.”
