My friend asked me why I was not writing a piece on Christmas. Well for all the reasons so many use to support their own reservations about Christmas – crass commercialism mind-numbing jingles exhausting rounds of parties and social events and yes a proliferation of blogs about the true meaning of Christmas I have taken the easy way out. I don’t like that but it’s easier – until this year. Leigh Vickery our editor at The Gathering published one of Luci Shaw’s poems and I’ve read and reread it because for me it captures the essence and the riddle of Christmas. How can One who “hurled a universe” be compressed like the mass of a dark star? How can one “older than eternity” become new? It’s a mystery and this poem has made Christmas new for me.

Mary’s Song

A poem by Luci Shaw

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest . . .
you who have had so far
to come.) Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled
a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world.
Charmed by doves’ voices the whisper of straw
he dreams
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath mouth ears eyes
he is curtailed
who overflowed all skies
all years.
Older than eternity now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am nailed
to my poor planet caught that I might be free
blind in my womb to know my darkness ended
brought to this birth
for me to be new-born
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.