O Thou who always art all everywhere
Art now confined in this small space, defined
By skin and muscle, skeleton; you wear
A baby’s face—eyes, cheeks, chin, lips like wine
Or blood. Beneath your tiny breastbone beats
Within your newborn flesh a human heart:
In Thou, O Son, the heart of humans meets
God’s heart and beats anew. And though in part
I see and know, I yet see face to face
Because you cloister in this skin, this straw
Strewn crib, this cattle stall, this place
Particular, grim, but glimmering now
With Thou, O Thou, dear bound unbounded All,
Thou tabernacling fleshed Emmanuel.
*****
from Weavings, A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life, Nov/Dec/Jan. 2016-17