This Stretch of Road

 

I wrote this poem to read at the Baccalaureate Service at my graduation. I couldn't in the end make the trip, so a classmate read it for me.  I post it here to honor the amazing gift this study opportunity and the community at Earlham has been.  In the poem, I refer to a favorite story found in Luke 24;13-32 which many know simply as the story of  The Road to Emmaus. 

For My Traveling Companions at Earlham School of Religion 

I wonder if the travelers

on the road to Emmaus

looked back in gratitude

for that stretch of road

bearing their grief

 before the familiar stranger

joined them and  heated up

their hearts.  Could they remember

 at which point they felt the sun,

 smelled the sage, walked renewed,

 and noticed the gold hue

 of the dust in the setting sun?

Once- joy made a Northwest road new-

one I travel every day. The May light

tickled my heart.  I turned up the radio,

rolled down the windows, and drove fast.

A crowd of cellists playing Vivaldi

 poured their music down the road

mixing with the scents of Fir and hyacinth.

 Foaming beige waves of Ocean Spray

 and Red Flowering Current rocked

in my wake.  That country road

became eternal when my heart

felt the company of the divine

for did not my heart  burn within me?

I turned 50 and began seminary not sure

what was dying and what would live.

I only knew I needed to start walking.

 I found myself on an Indiana road

traveling through silver trunked trees,

oceans of corn,  green fields,

and white stone buildings

 with dark interiors hearing

earnest talk perhaps  like

that of  Jesus and his friends’

walking to Emmaus.  

At this Quaker school of light,

each lesson bid me see the Divine light –

experience it burning, melting, purifying,

healing, growing – and know …and know

this light dwells within me.  At first,

my heart shrank and paled

 next to the brilliance of my classmates’,

but generosity fanned our fires.  In this place,

I burned bold and bright.  We may look back

on this stretch of road and marvel saying,

 “Did not our hearts burn within us?”

                       

                                    Sue Sutherland-Hanson May 2012