The prompt for Day 25’s November Poem a Day Challenge is “feasting.”

This sonnet is about the feast at the home of Mary and Martha recorded in Luke 10. I’ve been thinking about Jesus’ parable of the talents in Matthew 25 where Jesus says that to the one who has, more will be given. I’ve also been thinking about the end of the book of Job when all his fortunes and family are restored as if that were a reward or a do-over. I’ve been a bit unsettled by the passages. I think I’ve found my way through them, and I try and articulate where I’ve landed in this sonnet.

I’ve been playing about with the word “rest,” and how in English “rest” can mean “to be comfortably at ease” or “to recover” as well as that which is “left over” as in “all the rest.” Have a look, and let me know if rings true.

What feast is the feast which brings no blame?
Where one is welcomed and not denied,
Where one is free to take time without shame
Of not doing more, sit, be satisfied?

Mary found such a feast at the feet
Of Jesus where she fed on his word;
But her sister scolded and could not keep
It together, complained she should help her.

But Jesus told her, Yes, Martha, many 
Things are needful, and you are worn, obsessed
By all these troubling tasks which are plenty,
But leave you angry, anxious, and stressed,
Mary has chosen the portion that’s best;
She will get the feast and have all the rest.

© Randall Edwards 2021
artwork: Diego Velázquez, Cristo en casa de Marta y María. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons