Send out the radiance of the Eternal Girl. See now a cowshed in the dead of winter, And in the thickening darkness, fire Like a galleon ablaze upon the sea. The pinprick stars nod in their wisdom; Three bare trees bend on the horizon Under all that silveriness To remind us that birth and death are The start and end of the same reality. His mother holds him now As she will hold him again In thirty years, under that sparse hill: Mary, Maria, Mater Dolorosa, Ewig-Weibliche, Princess In the crib of thine arms is our salvation born. But today it is the angels’ song Brash, radiant; fire and the flicker of fire, All incipient, telling us what we do not want to know: That darkness will cover the earth From the sixth hour to the ninth; And that the spirits of the saints will Walk abroad on a Friday afternoon. Only, for this moment Heaven and earth are in this barn: She looks and he looks back at her: There is a small movement – The slight adjustment of his shawl; Her hand moves in a half-light gesture, slow. As kings and shepherds, stars and distant worlds Behold the little boy from heaven: Darling Jesus, Emmanuel, thou art come, Come, rejoice us, And turn our hearts to thee Peter Mullen |