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