Gift

I am the wheat grain that you sowed
after breaking the topsoil;
imbibing water, putting down roots,
searching for the soil surface
for the leaves of my seedling to emerge.
Captured light energy is transformed
to grow my shoot. Tillers grow
to canopy height, my ear emerges
from its leaf sheath. Forty days
and nights from fertilisation
to harvest ripeness.

You cut my head and thresh me,
separating chaff from grain;
blown, sieved and collected in the shoe.
You carry me where the flow of air
from fans will dry me.
Chilled iron fluted rolls strike me,
shearing me open, releasing my
inner white floury portions.
Reduction rolls reduce me
to smooth powdery flour.

You place me in an oven to warm
before you sieve me
into a bowl containing salt, yeast and
caster sugar. Hand hot water
binds us together as a dough
for kneading. We are placed,
stretched, pulled and lifted
to increase elasticity, smooth and
springy. We are ready to rise
stretching and expanding
to twice our original volume.

Proved by a second rising, we are
ready for baking. Hot and crisp with
a crunchy crust we are placed
on silver plate and taken
to be prayed over, held aloft and broken.
Torn pieces - body of Christ - given away,
consumed; washed down with wine.
Digestive fluids break us down, separating
carbohydrates, fats and protein; releasing
nutrients for absorption into the bloodstream
and transportation round the body.

Finally evacuated as faeces
to fertilise the ground from which
we were taken, the dust
to which all things return. The gift
of life, of food, of communion
passed from seed to plant
to ingredient to food to sacrament
to nutrients. The gift has moved on,
circulating - battered and broken -
expanding in the giving
to transcend our origins.

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The Reese Project - I Believe.