Bonus Poem: You Can Just Taste It

(Please page down to the previous post for the lectionary poems for October 9.)

You Can Just Taste It
 

I wait in a very long and slow-moving line at the Big E.
It's a free wine tasting, and I'm marveling 
at everyone's remarkable patience, when - 
finally getting close to the front -
A woman hands each person in line a tiny plastic cup.
I stare at the cup and ask myself, 
"Is this all there is? Is this what all these people are waiting for? Because it's free?"
And this sets me to marveling at Christians who, 
all across the world, can be just as patient,
When they wait for the same size cup, also freely given,
But one that turns out to be, not just some local red,
But the cup of salvation.

Scott L. Barton