A Lenten Meditation on What the Child Said Without Words

The Child Teaches Eucharist

If we were to eat like the little child eats

nobody would have too much or too little

for the child in its given simplicity knows

without being taught, without being told

that our daily bread is holy.

Note how the child in intense attentiveness

moves the circlet of oat around around

the highchair tray before lifting it between

finger and thumb, and note how the circlet

of the holey center, insentient or not,

yields to being lifted up in accepting

its part in the ritual drama of giving and

receiving.           

No perfunctory predation, this.

Note the child’s face as the circlet dissolves

on the tongue tasting tasting      

communing with what is given

for which we hunger with longing

longing being hunger that we may be fed

and loved and live wholly.

And note how the child lifts the cup to the

lips and drinks spills

the miraculous flow down the chin.

Note the child’s face oh!

who can glimpse without soulful seeing the

child’s face lighted in simple thanksgiving

of heart-bending, being-fed glow?

Margie