Samuel Claiborne
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Back to Poetry

The Annunciation

Your face
Transfixed with grief
Eyes rolling upwards
In shock and awe
As the God-bell tolled
Ringing into your fluted ear
The knowledge of the burden
You were to bear

To birth and be bereft
To carry the liquor of the divine
Distilled in your frail shell
Into a boy whose light sings
Too clearly to hear

Your passion
Constrained by innocence
Piety belying the blood
That danced under your feet
The earth curled among your toes
And murmuring along the strands
Of firmament in your hair

Your son
Will be taken away
But first you must carry him
Carry a seed almost too full to contain
Its divinity searing your womb
And sealing your fate
As fallow thereafter

All told in one moment
One whisper
Foretelling loss
As inescapable
As breath following breath