You break the scales.
You strain at the seams of our understanding.
That the heavens you have made can house you,
is too much to fathom.
When we know our place as less than nothing,
dust on the scales, or vapours rising,
gone by noon –
we wonder then, the reason for anything.
We look at the moon,
the whirling solar systems,
the measurements we’ve learned,
and earth too small for a pin’s head.
We wonder then,
how small a thing must be
before your attention’s diverted.
And yet you came,
in obscurity, in such vulnerability,
and utter nothingness,
that power became a thing small and hidden,
to cross barriers.
And even in death, you would find a means still
to be with us,
that the heart might hold in the smallest seed,
the one who established the heavens.
Yes, you have broken all the scales,
and torn to shreds the seams,
that there are no laws or means
to explain you.
And yet, we all soften,
no words needed,
as one beholding a child at the breast,
the symbiotic mystery of mother and son.
The Christ Child who laid down his crown
to cross light years,
and yet travel less than a hands-breadth distant,
from a Father whose not drawn his eyes from us.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
December 2019
Living Tree Poetry 