Bree Devones Hsieh
A feast is laid on the table today,
greeting, filling us after long travels,
no—years on a way.
Where we’ve come from, where we’ve been.
Places set around what’s been begun.
You call us around. You crouch
quite a ways down to lower
and lift up what the law says.
Then breaking bitter herbs with grain’s sown
sweetness, for days when I groan
Why is here
where I am?
You say: I am why every
where is here.
All these days were made through Your words,
all this here was made for good towards.
Your tacit hands wash
all the whys and wears
of my hard and lined feet,
and show the dirty drenched cloth
for hands’ purpose, chores
of movement’s cleansing to keep.
Then the wine and the oven-made now
remake the joy again—how
we all receive by what You gave—
by Your emptying emptiness is cast out,
by Your dying death lost in a rout:
You are the center of the feast,
You are the lifter of the least.
Here, You invite me, anytime, come, sit, eat!
Be found by Who made Himself last,
Who you thought lost:
Taste and see how feasting and lasting meet.
Photo by Annie Spratt
Bree was the founding publisher of SP Press. She lives and works in Pomona, California.