What you had to go through—
the smirks of lesser gods with better ideas,
our certainty you belonged higher up,
the violence of the emperors you threatened—
to come undefended, doomed and trusting,
to an unwed peasant mother
soon to become a refugee,
to a cold stable, a rough manger,
targeted by the regime,
to a dead-end path to an execution,
to come to the faltering heart, the fraying marriage,
the shattered city, the heartsick nation,
to the waiting room, the day room,
the back room, the courtroom,
to the projects, the rez, the unit, the camp,
to want to come, like a baby to be born,
like a mother in a fire going to her child,
like our nameless passions that will come out
in tears if we let them and otherwise if we don’t,
clouds that sooner or later will fall, will fall to their earth,
salmon struggling up a rushing stream,
a patient fighting back from a coma.
Our awe is to imagine you wanting
to come into the world like this.
And our worship is wanting like this
to come like this
into the world
like this.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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