A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original poem appears below. Margaret Avison is a well-known Canadian poet and a member of Knox Church, Toronto.
His actions are
whole-hearted, clear, spontaneous,
and therefore can be
interpreted, after, as
purposeful too.
There are inherent beauties —
crystalline structures under microscopes
hidden in cliffs and canyons from our glance who
pick our way along there.
As, for instance, the sudden awareness
while that supper was being served of
their weariness, and how refreshing cool water
for friends not just put up with
but loved in total vulnerability:
mustn’t it have been almost
unbearable (the separating hour had come)?
Then it would help simply to
take the slave’s towel and basin there.
O yes, it was an “example”;
that, too. The cliffs and canyons
are mine as well as the
equipped geologist’s, just as for him
more intricate structures
are hidden still till the magnification
comes, in glory.
Each time we fail
he sees our need and nerves himself
by telling us again
the way the Son of Man
must go.
Lord, make us vulnerable too, to love.