Poetry
One of the Practical Mystics
On reading Margaret Eben, c. 1300
Jeanine Hathaway
No Magi clomping down the spotless cloister
hall, no Holy Family packing up for flight.
Past Epiphany, it's just the sculpted Baby
who lies in Margaret's cell.
Candles glow, their miracle of beeswax
melting into wings around the Infant. Now,
urgently incarnate, he's fussing in his alabaster hay.
On hearing—look—the nun unties her gown,
draws her shawl across the gap between what
we can see and what she means to do. One could
name it more than need, but no one else is there,
a stone cold baby's crying—what should a busy
woman offer but a sweet, her own, the overflow?