Christened with Gravy

Christened with Gravy

(“Some men came down from Judea and began to teach the brothers: ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the law handed down by Moses, you cannot be saved.’” Acts 14:28)

You ate it all in one sitting and it stayed
with you for a week.
No one challenged your consumption. We all did the same.

The plates were too small, but we ate it all in courses
to the kitchen and back. We could have christened the
day with gravy and hallowed the smoker that sent its
aroma upward like a priest saying grace.

We did not pray, but the day was holy.
We did not sing, but the hours pealed like church bells.
We did not solve a thing. We dined,
we feasted,
we lasted long around the table like
babies
wrapping their tongue around yams for the first time.

We did not vet the guests coming through the door,
there was no test for admission, no confessions to sign.
There was vacancy from the time the grill was lit until
the moon laid its head on the northern hills.

I inscribed the same document for forty years,
I swore I believed Jesus would land in Jerusalem
by the end of a generation,
I expected signs and wonders, foreign tongues and
another
miracle or two
to prove we had read the fine print correctly.

Tomorrow I would meet my brother in a sweat lodge
if I still lived across the street.
Tomorrow I would chew tripe soup and corn chowder,
and feel closer to Holy Communion
while the heat taught us about friendship that rebounds
from the northern plains to the banks of a river
once populated by
fishing villages.

And we would remember.