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Mary’s Other Song

If I hold my hand against the wood, flat, like this

I can feel your breathing from above. Slow. 

I remember Labor. A mother does.

Labored.

 

At least, I think that is your breathing I feel.

Perhaps,

on the other hand

I am feeling the Earth, moaning.

 

When I kissed the soles of your feet in the manger

they were soft. 

Moist. 

with those pudgy arms out 

And you kicked and giggled

at right angles to your little body.

Like they are now, but different.

 

Now I feel those same feet on my forehead

So much walking. Dust to dust.

Boney. 

Spent on humanity.

On being With us. 

And the rose-blossom around that spike.

“Lo, how a rose e’er blooming”* 

Again.

“From tender stem hath sprung” a cross-beam.

 

I remember that night, three decades ago.

Shepherds and wise men and angels. 

God, it was noisy. 

“Can’t a mother get some sleep?  Jesus!

I just passed a God through a small hole.

Let a girl rest.” 

Joseph frowned.He often did. Hemorrhoids. 

Well let him give birth next time! 

 

And here we are, you, my sweet boy.

Choking back our Hallelujas

Like so many hairballs.

Waiting.

With an eternity of sentient beings. And the sun.

And John, your friend.

He just keeps staring up at you

holding wood in both hands.

 

One cross.

Thirty fingers.

Holding wood and steel, 

we three.

For life, dear.

Reference to the Rose: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyuOIYCERc4

We are crashing into the darkness, this child and I!  We are breaking darkness into shards of light which will toss and tumble throughout the cosmos and throughout history, forward and backward.

They said gold was to much for me to wear today.  “It is Christmas Eve.” they said. “You should wear tan.” they said.  “Gold is so bold, so brash! Si 1980’s. The artists who depict you in the MET will want you to be wearing quiet colors so that the baby stands out!” they said.  Well, when the stylists have pushed a child out of a space the size of an avocado, then they can tell me what a mother should wear to celebrate a birth!” (Men!)

No, I am Mary!  I am the God-bearer.  I am the woman God trusted to invite to participate in the saving act of redemption.  I am Mary. I risked stoning for this.  I saw women whisper when I entered the markets for this.  I felt my husband’s chilling judgmentalism for this.  I fled the murder of children and walked across deserts for this.  I felt my father’s occasional waves of secret disgust for this. Damn it, I am wearing gold tonight and this child and I are striding into the history of this planet with arms out, to bless, to touch, to heal, to save.

The clergy will think they are working hard tonight.  Try giving birth to God on straw with a donkey staring at you! Try giving birth to a child you know will be the kind of child they will want to silence.  Try making divine life when you know, somehow, that this child will bring as much agony to me as joy. Try being a Jewish mother!

So tonight, this child and I, we stride.  We saunter. We fling wide the gates of God’s eternity and open doors which will never be shut again.

Mary meek and mild?  Hell no! Tonight I wear gold! Let them talk! This little boy is fat with joy. Those little hands fling around blessing humanity even before he has the control of an elegant, priestly blessing.  This pudgy blessing is messy and beautiful and it will make the Bishops kneel and the priests tremble.

What does the mother of God wear tonight? Gold. That’s what!

I am Mary and this is Jesus.  We have arrived!

So stop what you are doing, kneel and weep for joy at the angels and trumpets arching across the sky while we slip on amniotic fluid and blood-matted straw. Life is that way.  As full of blood and sticky fluids as with angels and incense. As full of swaddling clothes as with cloth-of-gold. As full of praise as with lament.  As full of thanks as with fury that God would allow so much pain to mingle with so much joy.

This is not a night for good taste. I will wear gold and we will sing for unto us, this night, in the city of David, a child emerged from me and fed from me and here he is! Jesus.  God, come to save the universe.  So laugh. And rejoice and kneel.  And weep. Discard your purple and black.

Humanity’s bruise is healed. Tonight is a night for gold!