An Incarnated Word is a Poem

AN INCARNATED WORD IS A POEM

I. 

He knows our tongues are but 

a strip of meat, if ones which 

nonetheless are necessary for a taste 

of what is numinous. As such, 

there is a certain body-ness

to which his poetry obtains, 

though in this fleshy firmness, 

too, a summons—no, an invitation—

through its very self and into that

both searingly familiar yet beyond 

our best (if somewhat dim) attempts

to come to terms,

                             like an old hymn. 

II.

Oddly enough, it is this self-same

invitation to an always-more

which can irrevocably become—

in lieu of here and there

a line we mustn't cross—meaning-less,

and with a sleight of hand which

keeps the readers—at best—oblivious,

at worst, proud, of such a shift.

But this is not to say we might  

then circumvent the poem, ask the poet

what he meant. He sent,

you may recall,

                          the poem for that.