Mary's Song

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast

keep warm this small hot naked star

fallen to my arms.  (Rest...

you who have had so far to come.)

Now nearness satisfies

the body of God sweetly.  Quiet he lies

whose vigor hurled a universe.  He sleeps

whose eyelids have not closed before.

His breath (so slight it seems

no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps

to sprout a world.  Charmed by doves' voices,

the whisper of straw, he dreams,

hearing no music from his other spheres.

Breath, mouth, ears, eyes,

he is curtailed who overflowed all skies,

all years.  Older than eternity, now he

is new.  Now native to earth as I am, nailed

to my poor planet, caught

that I might be free, blind in my womb

to know my darkness ended,

brought to this birth for me to be new-born,

and for him to see me mended,

I must see him torn.

                     Luci Shaw

Descent

Down he came from up,

and in from out,

and here from there.

A long leap,

an incandescent fall

from magnificent

to naked, frail, small,

through space,

between stars,

into our chill night air,

shrunk, in infant grace,

to our damp, cramped

earthy place

among all

the shivering sheep.

And now, after all,

there he lies,

fast asleep.  


           Luci Shaw

Progress

We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
 

                                                                                                                    C.S. Lewis

Made Flesh

After the bright beam of hot annunciation

fused heaven with dark earth

his searing sharply-focused light

went out for a while

eclipsed in amniotic gloom:

his cool immensity of spendor

his universal grace

small-folded in a warm dim

female space-- 

the Word stern-sentenced

to be nine months dumb-- 

infinity walled in a womb

until the next enormity--the Mighty,

after submission to a woman's pains

helpless on a barn-bare floor

first-tasting bitter earth.

Now, I in him surrender

to the crush and cry of birth.

Because eternity 

was closeted in time

he is my open door

to forever.

From his imprisonment my freedoms grow,

find wings.

Part of his body, I transcend this flesh.

From his sweet silence my mouth sings.

Out of his dark I glow.

My life, as his,

slips through death's mesh,

time's bars,

joins hands with heaven,

speaks with stars.

                                    Luci Shaw

The Risk of Birth

This is no time for a child to be born,

With the earth betrayed by war & hate

And a nova lighting the sky to warn

That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,

In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;

Honour & truth were trampled by scorn--

Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?

The inn is full on the planet earth,

And by greed & pride the sky is torn--

Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

                            Madeleine L'Engle