Pieta by William Adolphe Bouguereau

All the way to Elizabethand in the months afterwardshe wove him, pondering,“this is my body, my blood!

“Beneath the watching eyesof donkey, ox, and sheepshe rocked him crooning“this is my body, my blood!”

In the search for her young lost boyand the foreboding day of his leavingshe let him go , knowing“This is my body, my blood!”

Under the blood smeared crossshe rocked his mangled bones,re-membering him, moaning,“This is my body, my blood!”

When darkness, stones , and tombbloomed to Easter morning,She ran to him shouting,“this is my body, my blood!”

And no one thought to tell her:“Woman, it is not fittingfor you to say those words.You don’t resemble him.”

NOTE: A Eucharistic poem by Roman Catholic Sister Irene Zimmerman.