There is no cloud of glory can define,
no gates of heaven can confine; there is
no dogma, doggerel, or doctrine can describe,
no earnest imitation reinscribe him.
Christ’s coming cannot be constrained or restrained
by our rituals of mortality.
Our candles are dimmed, our illuminated
manuscripts burned by the living Word…
This is Omega and Alpha, ending
and beginning, humbled only by love,
by love, by love
to enter this world and its contracting womb.
Rosalind C Hughes is Rector of the Church of the Epiphany, Euclid, Ohio, and author of A Family Like Mine: Biblical Stories of Love, Loss, and Longing; and Whom Shall I Fear? Urgent Questions for Christians in an Age of Violence. This poem first appeared at rosalindhughes.com