Daily Images of God--Lent 2022
Day 13
March 14
THE OVERWHELMING CHILD
“Our Lady of Vladimir," a Poem by Rowan Williams:
Climbs the child, confident
up over breast, arm, shoulder;
while she, alarmed by his bold thrust
into her face, and the encircling hand
looks out imploring fearfully
and, O, she cries, from her immeasurable eyes.
O how he clings, see how
He smothers every pore, like the soft
Shining mistletoe to my black bark
She says, I cannot breathe, my eyes
Are aching so.
The child has overlaid us in our beds,
we cannot close our eyes,
his weight sits firmly,
fits over heart and lungs,
and choked we turn away
into the window of immeasurable dark
to shake off the insistent pushing warmth:
O how he cleaves, no peace
tonight my lady in your bower.
you, like us, restless with bruised eyes
and waking to
a shining cry on the black bark of sleep.
Welsh theologian and poet Rowan Williams, an Anglo-Catholic Priest, served as Archbishop of Canterbury 2002-2012.
The Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God (Ukrainian: Вишгородська ікона Божої Матері, Russian: Влади́мирская ико́на Бо́жией Ма́тери, Greek: Θεοτόκος του Βλαντίμιρ) is a 12th-century Byzantine icon that is one of the most culturally significant pieces of art in Ukrainian and Russian history, associated with several miracles of community survival over the centuries.] Written in Constantinople, it was first sent to Kyiv as a gift and then was transferred to the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir Oblast in Russia until 1395, when it was brought to Moscow to protect the city from the invasion of Timur. For three centuries it was in the Dormition Cathedral in Moscow where it remained until it was placed in a Soviet art gallery. It is now located in a museum attached to the Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi.
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