I. To the Mother
in the Manger
Did
the very air vibrate,
humming
in the humid space
soaked
in the Holy Ghost?
Did
the sky push down on
you,
heavy with the host
of
heaven’s angels?
And
did you feel the heat
as
you were caught in the cross-
fire
of God’s gaze on God?
II. To the
Mother at the Cross
When
the cross’s splinters stabbed your heart,
did
you feel space unravel and rip
like
the temple veil tearing apart?
When
you knelt at the event horizon,
did
the hole in heaven suck out the light
as
the piercing wind was rising?
And
when you saw the wound in space-time weep,
did
time rewind, the cross now a cradle
where
your baby cries himself to sleep?
III. To the
Mother at Pentecost (Pentecost by
Jean II Restout)
As
the men cower beneath the burning shower,
you
appear at peace; your smile seems to greet the fire
not
as pain and napalm, but as a dear old friend,
as
the heated spirit who came so long ago
and
softly kissed you on that cool Nazarene night,
letting
you wear his shadow like the warmest shawl.
Yet
he knew you even within the silent womb
that
swaddled you, when he suffused you cell by cell
and
whispered purity into your brand-new blood.
