And Most Remembered

And Most Remembered

(“These are the stains in your love-feasts, as in your company they shamelessly gorge themselves; rainless clouds they are, carried along by winds; fruitless autumn trees, twice dead and uprooted.” Jude 1:12)

It was true, the banquets often lasted too long,
but not from verbose speeches and lengthy awards;
it was the people who would not leave for love of
a place to call their own. Their own homes damp,
their kitchens ravaged by dust that settled upon their poverty.

It was true, the banquets never solved the source of heartaches,
but they reminded (the bread with the wine) each diner of
the better time now within the refuge, inside the comfort
of unlocked protection and embrace. Their own faces
showed the joy at the tables and bounty in their voices.

It was swift, the aroma that switched from pleasure to scorched,
but the beginning of the overdone courses was slow to come out of the dark.
They hugged as well as they had at first, smiled the same gritty teeth,
but hazards implied their overheated eyes lusted authorship,
(their songs, their recipe, their work, their cutlery)
and might take the whole kitchen home unless applauded properly.

It was true, there were fewer at the tables after the fruitless left,
the clouds that mimicked showers, the dead pretending life;
but the joy rose higher, the wine flowed freer, the bread was
shared unhindered

And most remembered why they came.