In a café by the sea, a stranger takes
a table
Next to a family of three, small plates
before them,
Olives and cheeses and tastes and joy.
And a girl in pink overalls slides from
her seat
And hops on a bar stool, swings her
legs round,
And round and round, to her mother’s
delight.
Ευχαριστώ!
With eyes like stars, a waitress brings
our stranger
A steaming plate of artichoke hearts
and potatoes;
Each heart is a prayer of thanksgiving,
Smothered in warm cheese and blessing,
And our stranger is not so strange
here,
In this café by the sea, in
Thessaloniki.
Ευχαριστώ!
On the street, so many colors, so many
songs,
So many souls in the Aegean breeze:
A quiet group keeps vigil for Syria and
her pain;
A bearded priest holds a child’s tiny
hand, walking;
A teenager pesters lovers to look now
at sunglasses,
Though the sun has set and darkness
calls.
Ευχαριστώ!
Within my heart are other hearts:
My family on another coast, and the
little one here,
Watching a girl swing round a bar stool
one more time;
The broken hearts of children far away,
battered by war,
And the singing hearts of monks in
morning prayer;
And artichokes, o sweet communion,
Served warm by a waitress
With eyes like stars and a priestly
spirit.
The waitress who teaches me to say,
Thank you!
Ευχαριστώ!
4 May 2014
Thessaloniki, Greece:With thanks to the waitress at Myrsini who reminded me how to say 'thank you'--"EF-HA-RIS-TO!" I remember just enough of the Ancient Greek I took in seminary: just enough to recognize in "EF-HA-RIS-TO" the ancient word for 'thanksgiving' and the idea conjured by the best in ministry and faith: EUCHARIST!
