'we who eat the bread'

“ ... But we who eat the bread when we come in

Out of the cold and dark know it is a deeper mystery

That brings the bread to rise:

It is the love and faith

Of large and lonely women, moving like floury clouds

In farmhouse kitchens, that rounds the loaves and the lives

Of those around them ...

Just as we know it is hunger –

Our own and others’ – that gives all salt and savor to bread ...”

Thomas McGrath