as i was leaving the office tonight
in the five o’clock gloaming
there shone forth a star
gently but crisp against winter’s blue
it’s chilly always now
morning’s breath freezes
the tip of my nose frosts over
and i wish your hand
could reach from the future
back into the past
and warm mine
i held
— learned to hold —
my nephew last night
through his squirmings
and raucous protestations
i swayed and shhhhed
wondering whether
mothers know that sort
of thing intuitively
but i watched his
beautiful face
his curious blueberry eyes
and thought back
centuries before now
when a black-eyed boy
was born in the dark
and the dirt
where his mother
cradled him with the cows
baby born to die
so i could live and love
the beauty of the blood
that saved me
from myself
did He know who
He was
as His new eyes sparkled
in the light
of the stars
He’d walked among?
fully formed in flesh
He who knit sinew to bone
become like us
to deliver us
as He lay washed and dried
tightly wrapped
newly birthed
did He look toward the future
where He’d conquer
the past
and lay cold
washed and dried
tightly wrapped
with myrrh and balm
in burial
awaiting new life?
why would God
put Himself at the mercy
of man?
to have mercy on man …
little baby, new and fragile
tiny stars, so far and cold
there the foolish find in wisdom
greater hands than these to hold
—
(reposted from barefoot in pinstripes)
