Christmas, Day 5

It's the day of the FIIIIIVE GOOOLDEN RIIIIINGS, as the song goes. Here is my Christmas poem for 2011. Full of the song that sings in counterpoint and harmony with all the good and bad the world has in it.

Before the angels sang of glory or the shepherds heard the story

There was cold that night, the bone-chilling kind

That bites at nostrils and dries up eyes,

Yet the warm in the dark was as real;

An embodied enchantment,

Though there were no magic tricks,

Nor a chant to fall in midnight’s hollow ear.

Still the silent swirl of the stars harmonized

With the lullaby of soft silver shadows

From a half-waned moon.

There was counterpoint of chill and warm

And an infant still wet from the womb

Breathing fresh his sleep’s silent song.

Singing blood and cries and death

So soon come of blood and cries and birth;

A song just as strange as the warm in the chill.

Singing womb of the earth

Singing tomb left empty to sing its own song.

Singing divine poverty and holy love.

Singing peace.

Peace.

Peace.