The text, a setting of a theological poem, is in the style of a Chaucerian Roundel. The author explains the poem as follows:
“What do we have to sustain us in our faith? Surprisingly little of historical value, and nothing that is factually certain. We cannot have known those early communities or what they experienced, only what they have written, and only that in translation. BUT we do know that Jesus's whole ministry was one of sharing bread with all and sundry, regardless of who they were, and that (and doing that ourselves) is what can sustain us now, in our day.”
May it sustain us, that across the years
we catch an echo of the words he said
or glimpse a shadow from the light he shed?
We cannot hear their laughter, see their tears,
nor feel the hunger of the crowds he fed:
may it sustain us, that, across the years?
But when our empty hopes give way to fears
we search the fullness of the life he led,
and find he loved and lived by sharing bread.
May it sustain us - that - across the years.
Jennifer Henderson [b. 1929]
