Oh crucifix of domesticity,
Wooden prophetess,
Why do you wind my grief around you so?
Crude cross,
So prematurely spelling out "pain".
Sibyl of Nazareth - at once you're snatched!
From my peasant hands,
By this playful infant:
Laughing, like all innocents, unseeing danger,
Weeping through a chuckle,
He touches you, his fate,
Mourning too soon
The loss of childhood,
As I, Mary, cry such tears as
Only mothers cry.
Kneeling upon fallen wool,
I must lay him down gently.
To the hearth, do I then retreat, calling:
"Jehovah, if you know a shred of human need,
Come and raise him! Make him sit!
Lift him from this ignominious end!
As he will do for Lazarus; as destiny dictates.
Pray, send you choirs of angels setting the pieta in glorious reverse!
Lord, unwind death now.
Let Jesus stand, while I bow.
Sad Mary of the darkly hooded eyes,
Your servant; an austere, basic Madonna, I
Pointlessly, my hands always shall ring,
And centuries of artists'
painted cryptic smiles on my cracked face
Could never gloss over us two;
Mother and child.
Nor ever untie my weathered hands so I might help
This superman - who once neutralised sin.
Just as poems will fail to shed light
On all I remember.
I am your suffering Mary, and
Jesus' next of kin.