Mary – A Sonnet

Mary – A Sonnet

Dominic Palmer

I’ve never held a moonbeam in my hand,
much less the morning star. But there was one,
with faith like Abram left his father’s land,
became the mother of God’s only Son:
more spacious than the heavens, full of grace,
and full of him from whom all graces spring;
hospitable enough to hold and raise
the hope of nations and the dread of kings.
And so, my heart, let this be understood
through tempests of abstraction and confusion:
that bodies matter, and that matter’s good,
and this baby is more than all the world’s solutions.
We’ll never solve our problems like Maria,
but there’s no need to. Christ’s already here.

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Dominic Palmer
Teacher and Writer

Dominic grew up near Oxford and studied English at the University of Cambridge. He now teaches at a secondary school in Manchester, and recently cycled the length of mainland Britain with his wife.

Photography by Lisa Fotios