I came across a few poems from Luci Shaw and Madeleine L’Engle recently, and will be posting a poem each day this week leading up to Christmas from one of them. Below is one I particularly enjoyed. I tried searching for some artwork, but I could not find something that seemed to fit the scene that I had in mind to go along with this poem – what I picture to be a bare place, a simple, humble scene. Finally I remembered a simple drawing I created many years ago; it is below.
Made Flesh by Luci Shaw
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 splendor
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
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- Many years ago, my parents received a small set of Christmas cards in the mail (as a fundraiser) with pencil drawings on the front of the card, and which were empty inside. On the inside of the card was a short note explaining that each card had been drawn by individuals with disabilities. I looked through the cards, and since I particularly liked this one, I thought I’d try to draw it myself. I took an 8×11 piece of paper, a pencil, and finished this in about 1-2 hours. It is especially meaningful to me, because on the inside of this card was a note explaining more detail about this particular drawing. It was drawn by an individual holding a pencil in his mouth, and it took him a painstaking 2-3 months to finish this drawing. Here I was, with fully functional hands, and it took me much less time with not as much effort. I remember how humbling that was, and it made me mindful to be thankful for working hands.
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