Saturday, December 25, 2010

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

Friday, December 24, 2010

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




Saturday, December 18, 2010

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

Sunday, December 12, 2010

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

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

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