The Words of Institution

How much is bound up in the meaning of “this”—

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.”