Foot Washing

 

You worship him

as if he wasn't just like you.

But why did he come?

Only to reveal that your body 

and the Lord of Love 

were born of one mother. 

His blood and yours is beaten 

to a froth by her heart.

His sole is covered with the same dust.

Both say, I Am.

The I's are different, but the Am is one.

You bend and wash his feet with weeping,

dry them with your fallen hair.

He can barely tolerate such behavior.

Soon he pulls you toward his lips

and whispers your true name.

He fills you like a reed with breath.

Then he bows to You.

Which must be why you feel a secret yearning

to prostrate your flesh before the wildest flower,

the pulsating stone, the un-created sky.

You might well genuflect your life away

were it not for the pure white veil 

of learning: tear it off!  

The tears of a fool are jewels. 

Shatter your crown on a forget-me-not, 

a worm-encrypted clump of loam 

at the ragged edge of the pasture, the gaze 

of a lost Honduran boy across the wall.

Haven’t we come here to wash 

each other from head to toe

as we might bathe a newborn child, 

a grandfather's corpse?

Friend, what pours from these eyes 

is the ocean of forgiveness.

 
 
 
Art: Mary Madgalene washing the feet of Jesus
from the website of Clairmont School of Theology.

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