The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. - John 1:14 (ESV)
Before the straw,
before anything noticed,
there was a body.
It learned to carry God
without remark.
Breath came first -
hers, steady enough.
In and out.
The usual work
of staying alive,
now doing more than it used to.
Blood followed.
It kept its hours.
Nothing dramatic happened.
Nothing hurried.
The change took time
and didn’t ask permission.
Weight came next.
Not much.
Just enough to be felt.
Something resting
where no one could see it,
making itself known
from the inside.
She didn’t say much.
There wasn’t a reason to.
Pregnancy teaches restraint -
how to listen longer
than you speak,
how to let the body
answer first.
God learned that quiet
before learning words.
He learned what it means
to be carried.
To go where another goes.
To be fed when food appears.
To stay alive
by someone else’s attention.
Her body became a place
with limits.
You couldn’t enter or leave
at will.
He accepted that.
The waiting.
The narrowing.
No angels yet.
No names spoken aloud.
Just cells dividing.
One pulse
keeping time
with another.
Later,
wood and straw and cloth
would feel familiar.
He began here;
in borrowed breath,
in blood not yet given,
in weight held quietly,
in the long hush
of a body
agreeing
to what it had been asked to do.
GBS jr
2021
0 Comments