John Winthrop’s Flour

From my book A Craftsman at Play in Creation

The oven held one loaf of bread
The last that he would eat
For fast away their flour sped
While waiting on the fleet

From England’s green and fertile shores
From whence their grain would come
At last that they might fill their stores
And the pains of hunger numb

But no ships sailed into the bay
And each day they saw pass
Their flour ran on swift away
As sands through an hourglass

When history was written down
Would Boston see its name
One day remembered with Jamestown
For ships that never came

And The Starving Time that followed
When people died in scores
And their land with pits was hollowed
For graves along its shores

The future then he could not know
When he peered into his jar
And saw the flour drawn down low
And felt England then afar

But the Shining City Upon the Hill
Must shine for men to see
If as a spark in passing, still
A light eternally

What flour he had remaining
John Winthrop gave away
Thus through his want sustaining
His brother another day

Then the hand of God they knew
For that very hour
They spied upon the ocean blue
Sails as white as flour