XII
BODY

Your body is a haven where the light
of the centuries is gathered—an eternity!—
where the fleeting hours are resting.
Your heart (the hourglass of life) stopped beating
after giving its blood, and today it measures
eternity, the timeless moment of love.
Time elapses in You, in your heart:
yesterday and tomorrow are the same;
the beginning and the end are one.
Your body, crown of the intimate
fabric of the Universe, is its exemplar;
an immense region where men
harbor the anxious hope that they will
never die completely. You are the trunk
of humanity; you are the vine
whose branches here on earth are those
who, without realizing it, labor
and struggle to find You. You, the Man,
King of the Universe! Under the white
mantle of your flesh, naked and regal,
we see the bones of your body,
the fabric of the world; the support,
shape, and proportion of all that is. Death
has not broken your bones; the stones           John 19:33-36.
of the tower, the foundation on which
Creation, the dwelling of God, is resting!
Is not the redness of that vast, glowing
rosary of constellations, your skeleton?