Road to Emmaus

by Edward Keyes

Under the paschal skies the weight of dead hopes
lay heavy. Only the wan light of rumour
flickered fitfully. But who heeds women's tales
fashioned of drams, losing the fact in the dream?
The stranger was an irritant, dropping questions
  upon their mournful musings

till he spoke again.
Old embalmed sayings broke from their cerements.
Hints and prophesies thrust quivering into the present
with heart-warming life. The past was now.
They walked through time on that Easter afternoon,
yet somehow time was in the stranger, soon to be
  no stranger.

They knew him in the breaking of the bread.