Little town of Bethlehem in
Hebrew means house of bread.
Middle-eastern innkeeper’s wife
bakes bread in outdoor clay oven
to feed guests crowding the table,
filling every room; no vacancy here.
Village streets over-taxed tonight with
dusty lineage of David’s descendants.
Oven fires cooled, bread crumbs swept,
visitors settled but someone’s knocking:
desperate husband with panting wife
begging for bed, nesting in barn; scene of
midnight moaning, blood-stained straw.
Newborn baby’s cry echoes in starlit night;
babe of Bethlehem is bread from heaven,
the Son of Man comes as manna to earth.
Grown into manhood, he fasts long yet
refuses devil’s ploy of leavened stones;
feeds crowd of five thousand on hillside,
blessing of bread fills baskets of leftovers.
He gathers disciples, breaks bread at table of
last supper together, they eat passover lamb;
who offers his body as bread upon a raised altar
to nourish gaunt souls, to feed the hungry world.
a poem in my pocket 