Misfits

Broken tile, chipped stone,
Pebble mishaped. Bent
Are all the furnishings,
But uséd anyway.
Tile's rough edge scrapes
The stone, quarrel doth ensue.
Pebble finds no place
To wedge securely in.
Madness to attempt
Founding sky-top scrapers
With such misfits
As these. Yet with
Cornerstone
Of dimensions umblemished,
An unshakable monument
Grows out of the very
Parts discarded by
Builders of wise foolishness.
Clouded judgment rendered naught.
Sightless eyes speak to deaf ears--
Try to understand what is hidden
But old wineskins burst instead.
And so Rock turns upside down
What pebble, stone, and tile
Fail to accomplish on their own.

The poet's explantion of work: the real deal
The above poem is a chiasm, so-named because its structural shape resembles the letter "X," which in Greek is called "chi." The idea is something similar to those fingerpaint prints one would make as a child: sprinkle a few drops on one side of your paper, fold, press, and open up to get a mirror image design (an "X" looks like a mirror image itself). Thus, one starts with one idea, moves to a central idea, and then finally returns to the original idea (much like ABA form in music). This particular poem is about the church, based on Eph. 2:19-22: "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit."

Twelve lines lead up to the apex of the poem, and twelve lines recede, representing the foundation of the apostles and prophets. The apex itself is the cornerstone, set alone to signify its supreme place in the structure of the building. The "madness" of line 9 is paired with the "foolishness" of line 18. The catalogue of building materials is repeated in reverse order at the end of the poem. The first and last lines are the only that deliberately rhyme. In addition, the arrangement of the text on the screen is meant to give a vague visual impression of an arch. The text itself deals with the eclectic nature of the materials used to construct this arch, the church. The structure, an "X" (the Greek letter that begins the title "Christos"), further emphasizes Christ's central place in the organization of the church.