my house has been creaking and groaning lately
joints stiffened, spine misaligned
old wounds throbbing with the shift in the weather
for the first time i noticed a silver thread
among the cowlick hair shocked upright
by the scar that arcs down my head
it joins the company of others earlier earned
i am still so very young, but, when winter comes
i feel the weight of mortality in my bones.
You were my age, once upon a time
a man with wood-roughened hands
and an appearance not amounting to much
since isaiah told the story true —
yet in You eternal joy and the weight
of earthly woe were entwined
a wedding of ancient and ephemeral
fully in-personed in our frail flesh
six years away from a body broken.
so Who were you then,
Son of God and son of a table-maker?
even there i suppose You knew the words i’d write today
fumbling my way toward a greater glimpse of glory
You who of all were sinless still were subject
to a creation cursed by adam’s fall
You the Light had eyesight limited by darkness
You the Healer experienced exhaustion
every fibre of our feebleness You identified with intimately
sleeping, waking, walking, eating … aging
every moment of my life You’ve experienced
sinless at each of the steps i stumbled down
man was made in the image of God
but God made Himself into a Man
and played the same rules He’d written for us
so You, young as You were
once also felt the weight of the world in Your bones
and You, ageless as You are
still carry it for me
