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 dove’s 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

The poet enters the imagination of Mary, mother of Jesus. She reflects upon the miracle of her pregnancy, the amazing fact of God in her womb. Yet the poem ends with the understanding of where it will all end - 'for him to see me mended/I must see him torn.'