Dusty callused feet move by habit
along its hardpacked crust,
regularly into Jerusualem
and back
and back again,
a road like any other road taking
people to and from the city
to the temple,
the markets,
the executions.

But this Passover’s angel
did not pass over
the One they’d hope in–
Sabbath passed
they plod for home along a routine road,
walking toward Emmaus.

Aren’t there roads to Emmaus
variously named
for all of us?
  Wittingly or not,
we each walk such a road.
Some blindly scurry for a goal that is no more or never was.
Some see no farther than where the road
bends in the undergrowth and hesitate,
and hesitate
then plunge unsurely on.
But most of us
just walk.
Each step no arrival.
No loving cup,
    no citation,
   no hope moves us on. We
just walk
toward Emmaus
as we’ve always done.
Dreams bashed
     or bent
or never born
cannot enthuse our hearts.
We trudge toward our Emmaus where supper waits to be prepared.

Like some Mary before the tomb
or Miranda before the rabbitside reverie,
Gabriel Conroy before a window framing snow,
or two men walking back along a road they’d traveled many times before,
our hearts fail to tell our minds that eternity walks beside us,
the divine has come to walk the road with us
in human form.

Rembrandt shows the Christ arrived,
the glow of recognition and release.
Their supper feeds both soul and flesh.
The too-late question: Didn’t our hearts burn within us?

So much,
      too soon,
    so many steps
before arrival. 

Dusty callused feet move by habit
regularly into Jerusalem
    or Singapore
    Islamabad
    Johannesburg
  San Salvador
     Los Angeles