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JOHN 3:16 |
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The perfection of God that rose Jesus out of its body also put forth two Mexican girls, four and five, running alone down a city street, a wind of white dresses and red ribbons, hair as fine as black water-- shouts leaping halfway down the block-- then the mother rounding the corner behind them, shaking her head, “They wore me out.” A streak of laughter now. But it could be one day mother will be roasting corn and an uncle will lead one of the girls behind a shed — a birthday present he says -- and before she knows how to braid her hair or ever hears of Shakespeare, she will tear her face to shrapnel in the mirror, follow any boy who curses down an alley. That’s why he’s on the cross. Not for one sin or another, but to show the nature of birth, to tell himself — his children — the price of existence. Because God so loved the world, he wanted to be a girl with red ribbons, a blue Minnie Mouse watch, even if then he had to forget, to live amongst all the forgetting-- the tv talk show, the uncle, to watch him each day through the smell of corn. Because He so loved the world, he was willing even to be that fat man lying on the couch eating chicharones, scratching his balls, chafed red from the quarry, because the white light just goes on forever. |
