We Have Wines - Poem

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 10, 1999 by John D. Groppe

   It's the wine that shocks -- not the brittle bread --
   and reveals the Christ.
   Today, a sherry, golden in the cup,
   syrup-like but sharp on the tongue,
   the wine is grape, but not grape,
   something unforeseen on the vine
   except by the far foreseeing Father,
   who said, "Bring forth,"
   and affirmed what he had made,
   and the maiden mother, who at Cana
   said, "They have no wine."
   We have wines --
   sweet ambers, tart roses, almost bitter reds --
   that evoke our own transformation.

John D. Groppe Rensselaer, Ind.