I Sing The Body Immortal Poem by David L. Hatton

I sing the body immortal,
inborn longing, reflexive wish, certain vision
of flesh immune to death's decay and death.

Ignoring hope falsely borrowed
from the fate of angels, holy or fallen
(who never knew pilgrimage with matter,
were never clothed in Adam's flesh,
will never indwell these ashes from stars) ,
I sing a physical resurrection
and not some disembodied destiny.

I sing the body immortal,
the lifting of sin's curse, end of creation's groaning,
sole specific hope of human souls.

I sing the invitation from the Son of God and Man,
daring to don the image of Himself
to live our life and die our death
to glorify that prototypic form,
rising in it, ascending in it, returning in it,
graciously calling us to join His reign
within and above a seeming infinitude of Space
strewn with myriad star-crowded galaxies
waiting to be explored in the endless adventure
of spirits wrapped immortally in cosmic clay.

I sing the body immortal,
the new birth of God's originality
in blowing His own breath into lifeless dust,
eternal fulfillment of a divine design
far beyond the wildest dreams imagined
in Earth's long history of sages and prophets.

I sing a God-like spirit-soul humanity
forever wed to worlds of molecules
with wiggling toes and skipping feet
and kneeling knees and dancing legs,
with slender trunk and sturdy back,
with distinguishing pubic shaft or cleft
and unblemished skin over muscle and limb,
with masculine breadth in shoulders and chest
or delicate fullness in feminine breasts
and sparse hair, or missing, with color returned,
with hands that can clasp and build and play
and fingers that write and can sculpt and caress,
with neck that can turn at the sound of a bird
and eyes that are dazzled by beauty and form
and ears that still revel in music and song
and nose for enchantment with nature's perfumes,
with mouth that can taste and delight in sweet fare
and lips that can speak with a voice or a kiss.

I sing body and soul made finally whole,
the mind and the will incarnate, connected,
displaying the glory of God's naked image
clad shamelessly in Jesus' merits alone,
enjoying, encompassing, expressing
eternal life in the true bodily resurrection
promised by the resurrected Son of God and Man.

Because of Christ Jesus, Firstborn from the dead,
I sing the body immortal.

(5/5/2005 - in Poems Between Birth and Resurrection)