Robert Drapeau
The Desert of Sin
We wondered what it was when it appeared.
Every morning we ate to fullness and blessed God;
we took, and ate, and remembered
how far from hearth and home we were,
how deep we walked in the wilderness.
When some, in their wisdom (in fear),
thought this bread should not be
like fleshpots left behind and recalled in our memory,
they gathered it in baskets
and stripped it from babes and children.
It was torn, and broken, and cursed for its fragility.
Unshared, it withered and turned to dust.
The Sea of Tiberias
We wondered what He was when He appeared
treading upon the crests of the sea.
A ghost perhaps? A disembodied spirit?
But when He called out to us, “Do not fear!”
we remembered
that one day earlier, it was He
who took food offered by a boy and gave thanks.
He broke it and blessed it, and then
filled us with bread and awe.
Robert Drapeau is a husband and father of five. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona and works as a business writer for IBM. He also teaches Theology, Latin, Grammar, and Writing at his kids’ school. He is a co-founder of a Catholic writer’s group in Phoenix called The Kindlings (thekindlings.blogspot.com).
