THE VIRGIN AT NOON

By Paul Claudel

It is noon. I see the church is open. I must go in.

Mother of our Lord, I have not come to pray.

I have nothing to offer and nothing to ask.

I am here only, my Lady, to look at you.

To say nothing, to look at your face.

To let my heart sing in its own language.

Because you are beautiful, because you are immaculate,

The woman of Grace finally restored.

The creature in its first honor and in its final blossoming,

As it came out of God in the morning of its original splendor.

Ineffably intact because you are the Mother of Jesus Christ,

Who is the truth in your arms, and the only hope and the only fruit.

Because you are the woman, the Eden of the old forgotten tenderness.

May all creation sing to you in gratitude, Mother of Jesus Christ, simply because you exist!