The Tree at the Center

We talk often 
of the Son’s surrender  
His long suffering, His forever 
atoning—the shards  
of the universe, gathered 
to reconcile all 
the ways in which God 
has been lost 
to us.  

I want to know  
about the surrender  
of the Mother, if it felt at all 
like a body 
laid flat 
as creation writhed 
shaking the bed 
of Earth while Her mind  
broke  
into shards, into the wilderness 
into the wolf. No word, no language 
separate from the surging  
womb. 

I want to know 
how death hit Her square 
on the meatiest turn  
of Her trunk, then dragged Her 
from the forest—the embroidered branches  
rent from Solomon’s temple— 
to pierce Her stiff arms  
with Her son’s. 

I want to know 
how a forest survives  
without trees, how  
we will welcome the Son 
with the fires  
still burning.