The Son: a poem

Here is a poem that I wrote a few years back in which I reflect upon the wonder and mystery of the incarnation. Here I weave together some phrases from the old hymn “What Child Is This?” with my own reflective wonder upon Jesus’ birth.

“A virgin shall conceive and bear a son”:
myth, mystery, and mundane all meshed
and tied together in the smooth-soft flesh
and needy cries of infancy undone.
What child is this that draws attention from
ignoble shepherds, star-bent foreigners,
and vicious king?  How could this tiny child reverse
the world-wrought sin-space of human life?
This frail form hides deep within
tough and tender truths of God,
who chose to bare His very self in odd,
unguessed, and weakest shape to those in sin.
He dashed, and dashes, human renderings
in strongest weakness piercing everything.