The Interior Other

He knew to himself there was a distinctive look
about his chin, a specific, yet indefinable prowess
about his forehead and the mark of meaning
to the mole on his left cheek
but he believed the mirror could not
possibly hold such a view of him.

With the world brimming with billions of people
he told himself that he was like no one else but
he understood that his was the heart true
to all men.

As it is written: "The Lord God formed the man
from the dust of the ground and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man
became a living being."

In his eyes, he was the vision
behind the appearance, the soul
beneath the skin, the bone
of mountains holding truth to the light
and the muscle in the heart of the land – all such
things beyond the knowledge of mirrors.

Not being the common man
or the ordinary man, but also
not being the "special" man either,
he stood above himself into a dawn
of years far passed his time rocked age
as the sun glistened on his shoulder
as the wind tossed about his locks –
yet, he could never be seen as the observer
willed but only as he was with the color
of his mind mapping the metaphysical.

He walked along with the moon in silence
seeing his shadow follow along faithfully
while the night was painted with stars in dazzle
while his heart dissolved in the thick
of his breath
and he knew tomorrow could bring
no greater truth than what was already there.

There was a confidence in His eyes
without a trace of arrogance,
a certain depth to the line of His jaw
without a touch of the intimidating,
a graceful gentleness to His smile
without a tinge of sarcasm
and all whom He met found this
in Him and more as His measure
was truly greater than what they dreamed –
yet, He knew that everywhere it always
was already there while tomorrow would slip
through their fingers and yesterday
only could remain their constant grief.

He became himself through the steel
of the everlasting and the brass of the forever
with his soul as the metal of the moment;
then, He was of a multitude of geometries
into the beyond.

He was the doctrine of the landscape,
the physics of what it meant to be
and He was a soul in the world
but not a soul of the world. His image
was the vision beyond the soul.

As it is written: "Before I was formed
in my mother's womb, you knew me."

However, what made Him larger than life
and more than any looking glass could tell
was the vastness of His own suffering
the encompassing space of His own pain
as well as the blood of His self-sacrifice.

It was not only that He suffered, but the way
He endured his suffering. It was not
only that He had pain, but the way He triumphed
over it. Each day He awoke with devotion
to do the work of the Father
and each night He slept with thanksgiving.

In His air there was a calm.

To know Him as He truly is, is to receive
a transfusion of an inner universe, seeing who we
truly are, reaching for what we could be,
venturing
through the door behind the mind of forever.

To see Him is not to find distance
but to feel closeness, to not feel
the cold matter of an object but to fathom
the pulse of peace, to not face alienation
but to share in the indwelling of the Spirit.

As it is written: "He had no beauty or majesty
to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance
that we should desire him. He was despised
and rejected by men, a man of sorrows,
and familiar with suffering."