Praise Bread – a poem by Bethany Reid

Praise Bread
 
—after Jeanne Lohmann

I learned as a child that one 
of the many names of God is bread.
Our pastor broke in half 
a round loaf, said, This is my body,
broken for you. Communion’s silver trays,
doll-sized glasses of grape juice,
doll-sized crusts of bread passed hand
to hand. Do this in remembrance of me. 
Consider the many names of bread: 
croissant and tortilla and challah 
and naan. Baguette, lavash, injera. 
Consider cornbread, banana bread, 
buttermilk biscuits. Consider rye 
and pumpernickel, cracked wheat 
and white, lemon cake, pound cake.
Consider the cinnamon toast your mother 
made for you when you were sad. 
Consider aroma of baking bread, firmness 
of crust. Consider how each day
the baker rises early to her work,
the bread, kneaded and shaped, 
baked fresh, offered to the hungry,
taken, like praise, daily into one’s mouth. 

Bethany Reid’s stories, essays, and poems have recently appeared in One Art, Poetry East, Quartet, Passengers, Adelaide, Kithe, Descant, Peregrine, and Catamaran. Her fourth full-length collection of poems, The Pear Tree, won the 2023 Sally Albiso Award from MoonPath Press and is due out this winter. She lives in Edmonds, Washington, and blogs about writing and life at http://www.bethanyareid.com.