Description: A mystical poem inspired by John of the Cross.
One must abide in this sepulcher of dark death until the spiritual resurrection which is hoped for. -St. John of the Cross
An immortal embraces sterility.
A virile one, he becomes despicable
And inhuman, a hater of life
Who castrates himself
To become a father.
He drinks from the cup of trembling—
Makes a tree of the living wood.
Hanging from it, he laments in anguish
His fate.
Through the retention of semen
He gives birth
Through the pain of labor.
He does this from himself alone.
This is the suicide of the most excellent man:
The one who sacrifices all,
Who assails the self with every violence.
Those abyssal waters!
That afflictive blackness!
To be no longer human
But not yet divine.
It is not a pain of the body.
It is not a pain of the mind.
Sighs do not relieve it, and
Neither do groans or cries.
The spirit is torn in this—
Taken out of itself,
Ravished, and rent.
But how can we fear this death,
This long entombment,
When it precedes the true life?
Let us join Christ
And forsake this house.