The undefeated heart of weakness

In the Incarnation God comes to us in humility and simplicity searching for an answering gaze. For the sixth day of Christmas, here is a poem by J. V. Taylor:

 

Let not my humble presence affront and stumble

 your hardened hearts that have not known my ways

 nor seen my tracks converge to this uniqueness.

 Mine is the strength of the hills that endure and crumble,

 bleeding slow fertile dust to the valley floor.

 I am the fire in the leaf that crisps and falls

 and rots into the roots of the rioting trees.

 I am the mystery, rising, surfacing

 out of the seas into these infant eyes

 that offer openness only and the unfocusing

 search for an answering gaze. O recognize,

 I am the undefeated heart of weakness.

 Kneel and adore, fall down to pour your praise:

 you cannot lie so low as I have been always.

 

“Christmas Venite”, A Christmas Sequence and Other Poems (Oxford: The Amate Press 1989) p.15.