Feeding the multitude

Photo: Wesual Click

“Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people . . . The number of those who ate was about five thousand” — Matthew 14:18-21

They still wonder/ how we beat the record of Jesus / feeding 250,000 people with bullets

Against the 5,000 that swallowed his bread and fish

Since 1990, we keep seeing mothers in borrowed skins

counting the souls of their lost children

As if they needed extra fingers to add/ to the ten that were already occupied with corpses

The messiahs’ miracle left us with baskets full of brokenness heavy for us to bear

Like the yoke of poverty we shoulder

The discomfort of sleeping under broken roofs

The inherited broken classrooms

Crooked roads sored with potholes

Children who lose their parents

and parents who lose their children

We still hear cries that break our daily silence

Like the remnants of this miracle. That fed unwanted food to our hungry bellies

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eduardo de Bosco is an honoree of the Gujarat Sahitya Akademi Award in collaboration with Motivational Strips for his literary excellence. His works have appeared in Spillwords, Praxis Magazine, Eboquills, We Write Liberia, in anthologies, and elsewhere. Eduardo finds his peace in poetry, historiosophy, advocacy, education, music, and nature.