Mary and the Son of Man: Sacred Poetry
by Cosmic Poet Simon Pole
Trans Solar World Battery image by Joe Haput CC BY-SA
Mary and the Son of Man
God the Father, God the Son,
God the everlasting One,
But I see you most of all,
As the boy who mother called.
Though the angel came to say
You would be our Christ one day,
Long years had passed, that a dream
Your manger birth to me seemed.
Living with us in the house,
With your father, he my spouse,
Who adopted and scolded you:
As our baby we you knew.
Even James, who shared your chores,
And in the night heard your snores:
You, a playmate, he recalls,
In the street, bouncing a ball.
Son of Man, and brother too,
Learning child who pictures drew
Of the beasts who walk our Land,
Beasts produced by that same hand.
Power princely unaverred,
Its announcement left deferred,
Though in Law, and wise knowing,
Great we saw you fast-growing.
Until came at last your time,
You the ages thrilling chimed
With new wine, once water clear,
You who knew what gives us cheer.
Yet others like cousin John,
Who ate rough where cave-mouths yawn,
Predicted one great would be,
And asked: was our Jesus he?
A Son of Man Daniel saw,
In night visions, to whom law,
And all power, was bequeathed,
With a sceptre never sheathed.
This to us remained opaque,
How should we its meaning take?
That our brother and our son
Had the reign of God begun?
Yea, we waited at the door,
While you taught, an hour or more,
Brothers packed unto the walls,
In a house where more you call.
Indeed my sons thought you mad,
That their Jesus preaching had
To our people conflict brought,
He who priest and Temple fought.
Bloody, bloody was your sweat,
As a man, who shaking frets
Coming torture, and the pain,
On whose back the stripes are lain.
Oh I cried to see you raised,
Crucified instead of praised,
While mockers all stood around,
Degrading you from the ground.
Yet you loved us even then,
Remembering needs of men,
And unto your heart-friend there
Commended me for my care.
Oh Jesus why did you die,
Red with weeping are mine eyes,
That the boy whom I loved so
In a tomb could lifeless go.
Rich with spices was the sheet,
Wound around your head and feet:
Your cuts, though cleansed, were so deep,
They into the fabric seep.
And so I lay unconsoled,
In the home, now dark and cold,
Where in warm tubs I you bathed,
Burbling child, of skin unscathed.
But to my ears came reports,
Appearances which exhort
Those crestfallen by defeat
Unto brave, exalted feats.
Peter preached before us all,
Stephen by the Council falls,
And proclaimed the Son of Man
Right beside the Father stands.
All of this would baffle me,
If not my James came to see
You again, but not a ghost,
Or a dream as skeptics boast.
That body which we once knew,
Freshened like the morning dew,
Once bruised, now renewed in white,
Though the wounds maintain their sites.
The side, the hands, ankles clove,
The skin of man, rent and stove:
This skein of men’s fragile flesh
Was with sovereign Godhood meshed.
Those humble hours that you spent
With us in clay hut and tent—
Mortal man’s painful story
Is thereby given glory.
Such a shock applied to James,
He would never be the same,
Converted to leader be
Of the church centred on thee.
And so my son I praise too
The divine, ascended you;
The body once tethered here
Has gone to bide greater years.
Greater years, when heaven’s plan
Returns to us, Son of Man:
Son of Man so kingly decked
In that body Pilate wrecked.
Serve the Master must you said—
Who is lower than the dead?
The criminal lowest still,
And the lowest those they kill.
Is that not a Son of Man?
Soaked with sin, which of us can
Claim to be a higher thing
Than what you hung suffering?
But Master thus Servant then,
Without sin, the moment when,
Sinless thus, pure Son of Man,
Conquers, and our ransom stands.
Dear Jesus, we wish to trade
Our home here for one new-made:
Like that body, babes reborn,
With your love in glory worn.
From the Like a Lamb collection.