What is precious
inside us does not care
to be known by the mind
in ways
that diminish its presence.

 ~David Whyte

The monk who bakes bread

no longer believes in the measure-for-measure God

of the recipe books,

has little faith, if any, in the predestined endings

set forth by timers,

the finely sifted claims to inerrancy held

by cups and spoons.

Blended to life,

call his a leavened devotion to resurrection

appearing from within each cracked tomb of grain,

the hunger that presses his hans

dawn after dawn,

deep into the just-risen flesh.

Cowl white as the flour he scoops, mixes,

forms pat pat into loaves shaped like naves,

it is his chest, filled with the invisible yeast of breath,

that knows by heart the patient kneading together of days,

how long love takes to rise.

~Daniel Skach-Mills