“Incarnation” by Irene Zimmerman (poem)

---

In careful hands
God held the molten world—
fragile filigree
of unfinished blown glass.

Then Mary’s word: Yes!
rose like a pillar of fire,
and Breath blew creation
into Christed crystal.

This poem originally appeared in Incarnation: New and Selected Poems for Spiritual Reflection, © 2004 Irene Zimmerman. Used by permission of Cowley Publications, an imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group.

Sister Irene Zimmerman, OSF, is a Franciscan nun living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Born in 1932 into a large Catholic family on a farm near Westphalia, Iowa, she knew from an early age that she wanted to enter the religious life. She joined the School Sisters of St. Francis in 1954 and spent her career in various ministry roles, including high school English and French teacher, secretary, house mother in a German boarding school for girls, and music minister, along the way developing a keen interest in writing poetry. Now in her retirement, she continues to write and to sing in church choirs. She has published five original poetry collections.