Saturday, November 22, 2014

Ave Maria


The blood stopped flowing
After the dream of angels
And all her promises of
Essene purity will be for 
Naught and worse than
Naught in the eyes of a
Judging censorious world.

Ave Maria
Gratia plena
Maria, gratia plena 
Maria, gratia plena

She had told him, the 
Elder who would have her
Hand without the promise
Of children to honor his
White-haired age or
Posterity or the promise
Of a future grown from
Their common seed sown.

That by the imagined
Grace of a dream-angel
Heralding her courses
Stopped, blooming
Impossibly
Told him all she 
Could offer, the 
Shameful pregnant
Virginal liar befoe the eyes
Of a doubting dubious world.

Growing within her
A new world burning
Every vein afire with
Impossible possibilities
The infinite encompassed
By her fragile human
Mortal womb stretching
Pains upon pains
The walls of the 
Unknowing world within
Her small feeble frame
The ramparts of all
That is and was and
Will be held within her
Flesh straining to hold
All of creation creating
Itself within her 
Created finite self
Infinities distilling into
A tincture of grace
The universe drawn out
Like a camel through
Like a fat man through
Like the world through
The eye of a needle.

And she will be the
Needle-eye of 
A world birthing itself
Into the world existent
And every worlds possibility
By her womb redeemed.
And the angel had told
Her of the myths and
Fantasies to be
The ramparts of legends
To sanctify her frail
Human self by 
Generations of monks
And bookish scholars
And celibate judgmental
Saintly men bound to
Justify her soon to be
Sacred generation as if
There was no blood in
Birth or blood in the
Veins of that which
Was wailing to be 
Born, born in mortal
Fallen flesh.


Ave, ave dominus
Dominus tecum
Benedicta tu in mulieribus
Et benedictus
Et benedictus fructus ventris
Ventris tuae, Jesus
Ave Maria

Immaculate!  Without
Sin or scar or 
Any of the taint
That any daughter of
Eve might carry within
Her moon-caught
Earth-born womanly
worldliness and want.
But what could be the
Point of a divine
Birth without flesh
Or blood or pain or
All the faults of 
Eve-knowing and
Cain's-marked 
Man and woman
Enjoined and born and
Bred.  And she had
Indeed been born and
Bred and descended from
Ten thousand generations
Of quarreling bitter 
Bastards and harridans
And selfish, squabbling
Vicious people, chosen
Or not, pious or not,
Blasphemers, murderers
Whores and whoremongers
Thieves and slavers
Slaves and sinners.
A daughter of Eve was she
Daughter in turn of a son of
Cain, no matter how the 
Stories invented notional
Seth to distance the
Laity from the direct and
Proper conclusion that
They all were born of that
Line that lived, and not that
Of childless simple 
Blameless Abel.

Ave Maria
Mater Dei
Ora pro nobis peccatoribus
Ora pro nobis
Ora, ora pro n obis peccatoribus

The birth was upon them
And she could feel the
Curse of Eve in her
Agony, and worse, could
Feel the infinite agony of
Which her horrible straining
Separation was but a
Distant and mercifully
Shallow echo
The birth-pains of a
Universe opening its
Human eyes for the
First time, and His
First Cry cracking
The firmament like a
Miscast bell struck by
A hammer too hard and
Sharp for the frail
Metal cast by a 
Smith too unsure of
His material and the
Purposes intended.
Infinity compressed
Within one small wailing
Infant and that wailing
Will echo across the
Whole of creation from
The first crack of 
Dawn to the last
Clang fading on
That final, lifeless
Worthless rock. 

Every mother brings
Into the world two
Things: one life and
One death and all
That lies in between
Is out of her hands but
Still her gift given
And Eve bore a Cain
And Eve bore her Abel
And she bore the 
Burden of both
And she?  The new
Born mother, what
Burden for bringing the
Death of God into
A world split asunder
By the birth of that
Which could not be
Contained by that
Which nonetheless
Yet contained it?

The Church which
Was to come would
Remember and sanctify
That death as a
Passion, ritual upon
Ritual, play upon
Play, signifying the
Corn-god triviality of
A man's tortured 
Death as if death
Were something of
Note in our fallen
Failing world, when
All around them death
And pain and misery
March in endless
Serried ranks like
The hosts of hell
On the double-step.

Nuct et in hora mortis
Et in hora mortis nostrae
Et in hora mortis nostrae
Et in Hora mortis nostrae
Ave Maria

For the mother of
The infinite suddenly
And impossibly
Finite the one and
Only - horrible and 
Comprehensive and
Terrible - miracle was
Always
And always will be
That awful birth
Now and forever
The scream of 
Everything 
Aborning
World without end.

November 22, 2014

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