Bending, Breaking

Life Everlasting & Everlasting Plastics: the Body of Christ and seeing plastic make the headlines the same week as...everything.

We put rounded plastic triangles 
on the ends of our bannisters
to smooth the edges,
to protect little heads that turn around the bends too quickly 
 
Turns out, everyone was right about plastic:
It’s durable (not going nowhere no time soon)
It’s filling our planet
It’s filling out bodies 
We are becoming plastic
It’s killing us

We are dying in an infinite number of minuscule ways.

Plastic does not always bend
[eventually] it breaks 
[doesn’t break down fast enough]
[breaks down into particles so small it enters our water, our food, us]
When left outside for the six months of winter here in the northern land, its colors fade in white waves
Thaw freeze thaw freeze freeze freeze freeze thaw
—It breaks. 

And what of it? We knew, 
We know.
We become what we receive.
We are what we eat, however microscopic, however mystical, however toxic.

A school of thousands of tiny plastic particles, a moving, lifeless murmuration 
Shifting like clouds 
[there are clouds of plastic], like drops of ink in a glass
Into our bloodstream, 
Into the mainstream.

Amen, Amen I say to you
I am the Bread of Life
Those who come to me
Shall not hunger
They shall not perish but have eternal life

Amen, Amen I say to you
You become what you eat
gulp and gobble
nibble munch
chew savor crunch
sip mull dissolve digest
Into trillions of tiny bits
[of me]
Flooding and transforming your body, yourself
Into something 
else
New
Glowing
Radiant

Your light will break 
forth like the dawn
spreading across the mountains
until full day

For I am the Light of the World.
A light has shone forth in the darkness, 
And no darkness shall overcome it. 

Amen, Amen I say to you
You who are bent over
from disease and grief
despair and rage
pain disbelief 
disenchantment deprivation
terror and terrorists
dying and death
Rise up, Rise up
And walk.

Amen, Amen I say to you
Bend your ear to hear my word
May those with ears hear 
Repent 
repent return
return
return.
To this living bread,
broken and shared.
Bent low so that you might be lifted up.
One bread, 
one body.
Rise up now 
and walk.