Wine in the Glass, Blood in the Sky

Wine in the glass, blood in the sky,
the folded promise of God
present
overwhelms all vision:
The Second Coming is pale
companion to the first.
The First, close as earth,
demands attention now:

Now, when the matters are as simple
as the nursing child,
the need to pay taxes
to the occupying powers;

Now, when the poor in spirit and in fact
long for release
and hope that God will make
all creation new;

Now, when the child stretches
and the mother sees the cross;
Now, when the strange visitors
bring rich people's gifts,
when what is needed are
bread and wine,
justice and mercy;

Now, when all the babble about
the Second Coming
is madness for the tongue,
the only sanity is to speak of this day,
and of every
this day,
as time for truth and peace,
and for Immanuel.

It is time to take the First Coming
seriously,
or the Second not at all.

(first published in the Witness, December 2003)