III
HEAD

Your head bows down over your breast
like a white lily that is withered
by the sun; sadness caused by the awareness
of evil makes You lower your ivory brow.
As though your face were hidden
and shamed by its common humanity.
Consumed by pain, you bear all the sorrow
of the world. Only You can know
the evil that is done by men,
and it weighs You down, since You embrace
their deepest flaws with your vision,
since the soul becomes that which it knows.
With your vision of love which nothing
can escape, you take up our sins,
but when you pardon the sins of mankind
you do not pardon Yourself,
the only Son of Man who is free from sin:
You, the only one who comprehends it.
And so You took sin upon yourself,
the bitter knowledge of good and evil,
which lets you be God as well as man,
since for our sake you have become sin,           2 Corinthians 5: 21.
and heaven is filled with souls you have stolen
from the world, by acting as a thief.