Maybe you got a gift certificate to Borders’ or Amazon for Christmas. Maybe you got a book you didn’t want. Read this poem by Mary Karr, and then, if you like her work as much as I (and many others) do, buy Sinners Welcome, her new collection .
Descending Theology: Christ Human
Such a short voyage for a god,
and you arrived in animal form so as not
to scorch us with your glory.
Your mask was an infant’s head on a limp stalk,
sticky eyes smeared blind,
limbs rendered useless in swaddle.
You came among beasts
as one, came into our care or its lack, came crying
as we all do, because our human frame
is a crucifix, each skeletos borne a lifetime.
Any wanting soul lain
prostrate on a floor to receive a pouring of sunlight
might—if still enough,
feel your cross buried in the flesh.
One has only to surrender,
you preached, open both arms to the inner,
the ever-present hold,
out-reaching every want. It’s in the form
embedded, love adamant as bone
In a breath, we can bloom and almost be you.
Mary Karr
from Sinners Welcome
(thanks to the People of the Book blog.)