THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

It’s not the friendliest of villages, Emmaus,
the people parochial, as desert people are,
bound up in the herding and bartering of beasts,
the vines on its terraces encumbered with thorns,
the children in the market roasting a sparrow,
hardly the place to expect revelation,
if revelation’s the word – I leave that to you.

Not that we’d never believed, my partner and I,
not that, but leaving Jerusalem on business,
with news of the death, or perhaps I should say
the absence among us of someone like a God,
we felt at a loss, and not a little diminished,
and talk as we may, of covenants and creeds,
our thoughts came round to the prices of wool,
the bundles of raisins and dates in our panniers.

The Road to Emmaus

It's not the friendliest of villages, Emmaus,

the people parochial, as desert people are,

bound up in the herding and bartering of beasts,

the vines on its terraces encumbered with thorns,

the children in the market roasting a sparrow,

hardly the place to expect revelation,

if revelation's the word – I leave that to you.

Not that we'd never believed, my partner and I,

not that, but leaving Jerusalem on business,

with news of the death, or perhaps I should say

the absence among us of someone like a God,

we felt at a loss, and not a little diminished,

and talk as we might, of covenants and creeds,

our thoughts came round to the prices of wool,

the bundles of raisins and dates in our panniers.

Besides, by then we were tired of religion,

what with the heat, the dust, a mule going lame,

and the stranger who'd fallen in with our journey

going on about prophets, the life in that death,

a vision which didn't make much sense at the time

but stirred our hearts greatly, before we tired,

and hungry and irritable, slapping at the flies,

entered Emmaus and tethered our beasts.

That it should, that it could have been otherwise

presumes, I think, too much of human piety

and grants few gaps for love's irruption

unbidden, uncalculated into our lives.

His hands, the strong sunburned fingers

breaking the rough brown bread of the tavern

and writing a cross in the spaces between us,

above the wine in the cracked clay goblets,

the dim yellow sputter of the wick in its oil,

his hands first brought it home to us, 

in Emmaus.

By Christopher Michael Zithulele Mann (1948-2021), a South African poet and playwright

The Servant-Girl at Emmaus

“The Kitchen Maid with the Supper at Emmaus” by Diego Valázquez c.1620. The poet Denise Levertov was inspired by this painting to tell the story of the Servan Girl at Emmaus. 

The Servant-Girl at Emmaus (A Painting by Valázquez)

A Poem by Denise Levertov

She listens, listens, holding her breath. 

Surely that voice

is his—the one

who had looked at her, once, 

across the crowd, as no one ever had looked?

Had seen her? 

Had spoken as if to her?

Surely those hands were his,

taking the platter of bread from hers just now?

Hands he’d laid on the dying and made them well?

Surely that face—?

The man they’d crucified for sedition and blasphemy.

The man whose body disappeared from its tomb.

The man it was rumored now some women had seen this morning, 

alive?

Those who had brought this stranger home to their table

don’t recognize yet with whom they sit.

But she in the kitchen, 

absently touching the wine jug she’s to take in,

a young Black servant intently listening,

swings round and sees

the light around him

and is sure.

Denise Levertov

Source: http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Lent/e-Emmaus.html