XXXVII
NAILS – AND ART

Your nails are the keys which unlock
the door of death, and of life.
They are the four eyeteeth of Death
forged by Tubal-cain the Cainite           Genesis 4:22.
with the art he used to build
the primitive houses of a city which           Genesis 4:17.
he founded after covering it with blood,
(as a foundation); the son of the first man
took his brother’s life—and war began!—
from which art originated and was sanctified
by your hands, Master Carpenter!
Yours were already calloused in youth           Luke 2:51.
by the difficult task of pounding nails
as you sweated over the wood
—that of your cross, a wedding bed, an omen—
each day earning for yourself a crust
of bread, which teaches us to earn it
by praying to your Father every day.
Your hands liberated the art taken from
the tree of knowledge of good and evil
and given to Cain, the first child of Adam,
his father. And these hands, always open,
finally achieved human diligence
through the cross, the finished woodwork
made with the sweat of a divine man.
Because the cross is also a work of art
that surpasses the creations of nature.
To those of his lineage, Cain left the art           Genesis 4:2.
of cleverness, which is similar to the crime
of envy—even art is a crime—and You,
Lord, transformed it into something pure,
You, with your hands lifting up to heaven
the terrible fruit of knowledge!