LITMIR.BIZ

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will go soon. Why did I come

      or linger? What hope throws stars

      across the sky, ropes muscle into walking,

      stalks every move tonight? I must be mad

      or dreaming. I will leave. I will go home.

      As soon as her song is done.

      THE LAST SHEPHERD

      I stayed here on the hill, with the flock.

      Somebody had to. I told them, Don’t expect

      me to run up and down after your

      miserable thin sheep, but I’ll keep an eye

      where I can. Fools need someone.

      “Angels singing.” What next, for an upswing

      of wind through scrub and fruitless dates.

      If they studied the sky like I do

      night after night on these rocks, they’d know

      the elongated points on that star, its aura

      like bright dust, its illusion of motion,

      was not so unusual. I am no Roman,

      but I have not spent my time collecting dust.

      I have listened. I have even found reading

      possible in bursts that thrilled my heart.

      Yet here I sit watching the frost grow

      over the stones that lie everywhere.

      Against the cold I raise the wide sleeve

      of this ragged wool cloak over my head,

      left then right, until each arm locks up.

      I must look like the temple cripple.

      Rumor has it he raised his arm above

      his head for years to praise and beg God for

      . . . . . who knows. Then it froze, absurdly.

      I pull my woolen holes together, for warmth.

      I can see them kneeling and praying

      in that cave’s weak light. What do they expect?

      The Romans have a god for everything.

      Why not? They rule the world. Made it, really.

      Who’s to say? Their gods take good care of them.

      Three of them are talking with their hands.

      The other two walk silently, heads down.

      Each one emerges from a cloud of frozen breath.

      I will not embarrass them. Why should I?

      We were children together. I will listen

      closely, nodding my head. I will pray

      with them. Yes. Why not? I cannot love

      bitterness long. It is cold enough on these hills.

      They have seen me. I wave back,

      push the unburned twigs into the fire.

      THREE IMAGES FOR CHRISTMAS

      The snow came down on his questions

      one deliberate flake at a time,

      giving them outline and form,

      identical white dust from where

      he stood, soon reconfigured by boxwood,

      sycamore, frozen gingko and holly knobs,

      a world waiting to be covered

      and made perfect: a single question

      after all, so cold and so beautiful.

      Ferns of crystal frost grow up each pane

      of the front windows, a tiny jungle of light.

      “It’s beautiful,” he thought, “if you can

      survive in it.” But why any overlay

      of beauty, in a world where

      skin freezes, burns, lays open, dies?

      Yet it haunts us everywhere,

      as the soul of things, the whisper

      in every silence, the silence under every sound.

      As the sun rose, the jagged branches

      retreated one tiny limb at a time,

      an outline traced in vapor, the memory

      of a voice just past, or passing.

      Christmas fell as snow on his roof, sills,

      shrubs, and jacket sleeves. It painted the north

      side of the chimney white. Each bare tree lifted

      arms to the snow that was anything but snow

      filling the air with so many points of light,

      the air knew at last what it was.

      GRACE

      No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.

      —Zen proverb

      In the blue-gray blur of this window

      I find light enough for disbelief:

      My child’s eye above this book of drawings,

      no two alike, star-crossed hooks and eyes.

      Yesterday, millions died in the gutters,

      on lawns and sidewalks, melted on my sleeves

      and shoulders, a glitter of brighter light

      before the drab stain and chilled bone.

      Today their disappearing hexagons

      lock hands as far as my eye can guess.

      They catch community and silence

      in deeps unequaled in fifty years.

      Stars fallen into dead weight, they bend

      down our breath, shoveling to keep up.

      Spring seals itself in crystal palaces.

      All the lives of water fall and fill.

      Galaxies of tiny lights wink out

      in the junipers beside the small front porch.

      Between them, one spotlight descends

      like a diving bell, seeking the half-size creche

      nearly buried in the Gothic alcove.

      Kneeling cattle, lambs, shepherds have been

      called home. Three kings have been deposed.

      Joseph breathes through his nose above

      the leaning drifts, bewildered as the rest of us.

      All the way in, against the frozen door,

      the child and his mother cannot stop smiling,

      centered by the hushed and glowing snow.

      INCARNATE

      Embody

      the great dream

      God dreams into skin

      tight with muscle,

      bone, articulated ribs,

      all flesh into desire.

      Place

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