infinity walled in a womb

"He was a baby and a child, so that you may be a perfect human. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, so that you may be freed from the snares of death. He was in a manger, so that you may be in the altar. He was on earth that you maybe in the stars. He had no other place in the inn, so that you may have many mansions in the heavens. He, being rich, became poor for your sakes, that through his poverty you might be rich. Therefore his poverty is our inheritance, and the Lord's weakness is our virtue.  He chose to lack for himself, that he may abound for all. The sobs of that appalling infancy cleanse me, those tears wash away my sins. Therefore, Lord Jesus, I owe more to your sufferings because I was redeemed than I do to works for which I was created." Ambrose, Exposition of the Gospel of Luke 2.41-42.

After
The white-hot beam of annunciation
fused heaven with dark earth,
his searing, sharply focused light
went out for a while,
eclipsed in amniotic gloom:
his cool immensity of splendor,
his universal grace,
small-folded in a warm, dim
female space-
the Word stern-sentenced to be
nine months' dumb-
infinity walled in a womb,
until the next enormity-
the Mighty One, after submission
to a woman's pains,
helpless on a barn's bare floor,
first-tasting bitter earth.

Luci Shaw, Made Flesh