After forty days hid in the cherry thicket with you
We come like a medieval procession, followed
By lambs and nuns and joseph and candles
Up the steps and through the incense
This is the house
This is the house
Who may go up to the house of the lord?
I in my veils
And you veiled in me
And you—like every child
Are a new thing who—such a short time ago in
My short life did not exist
And—yes—just like any child—
You are eternal.
Blinking you tell me
You have always been,
You are everything
You are God of God
And every baby knows that
That man
That arbitrary old man who doesn’t know you
Doesn’t know you like I know you
Like the only way that matters to know you
Like all the old men and women and hopefuls who will
Come and call you this and that and everything but the
Important thing
Which is my baby
That old man is lifting you up and singing words over you
Departing in peace, departing in peace
And lintels are lifting their heads
Growing higher ancient doors
For the king of glory
But I don’t need this glory
Or these words like a guillotine
The child will not live
The child has cancer
The child is not like other children
This child will not be loved
This child will not walk
This child cannot talk
This child’s skin will never heal
Any mother knows
Any body who has ever mothered a body knows
When she sits, when he stands over the thing he loves
And hears the sentence like a gun shot
Sees the body of the baby in the shoebox coffin
The ravaged child, the little horror of the corpse in the wood
All the candles mock them
The psalm slaps them
The old man chants on heedless
And heart freezing like a stone
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