Much Too Much

Much Too Much

Beth Tosh

When they sang it -
Love came down,
Did they know how much?

Did they conceive
Of eaten hands, hollowed eyes
Spit back into wholeness?

Did they see Jesus
Walk into the ring
Of outcasts
Strung around the edges -
Uneven, blinking,
Passed on by like
Any other sad and underwhelming
Christmas light display in the park?

He said “hey”
They said “hey”
And love sat down.

Did they see the rich
Creeping close,
Trying to get a piece of him,
The one thing they would envy from the poor?

And did they see
His heart snap
As it stretched the miles
Between the two?

Because I saw
That Love -
Despite his grief at seeing me
In all my strings
Of shiny, showy things
Hung to hide a shabby heart -
Did not change.
He did not shift or morph for me,
The camel by the eye.

He is a Love
That burns a way
Through all kinds
Of fearful, frantic, dressed up
Lack.

And he pulls me into
The circle of unworthy ones,
So I can belong.

I didn’t know,
When I sang
Love came down,
How much.

How could we start to know it?

But Love,
This Love
Is coming down again

To spit and burn and eat and laugh and sit and ask and tell
And be with us.

How much, you ask?

Enough
And more
And more than enough
And more
And more
And more than much too much

Until we sing
Love came down
And know he has,
With wobbly hearts and knees
And bellies full
And a taste of forevermore 
On our lips.

---

Beth Tosh
Poet & Mother

Photography by James W.T. Benn