ECCLESIASTES 11:1
We must cast our bread
Upon the waters as the
Ancient preacher said,
Trusting that it may
Amply be restored to us
After many a day.
That old metaphor,
Drawn from rice farming on the
River’s flooded shore,
Helps us to believe
That it’s no great sin to give,
Hoping to receive.
Therefore I shall throw
Broken bread, this sullen day,
Out across the snow,
Betting crust and crumb
That birds will gather, and that
One more spring will come.
-Richard Wilbur
Anthony Esolen features this poem by Richard Wilbur on his site Word & Song; here is a clip from his introduction:
“Wilbur takes his inspiration from the words of Jesus, when he was entering Jerusalem at the beginning of that fateful and sacred week, and the people hailed him, laying palm branches before him and crying out, ‘Blessed be the king who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Then the Pharisees appealed to Jesus, asking him to make the people be quiet, but Jesus said, ‘I tell you, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.’ And we may remember, too, that when the disciples tried to play the tour guide with Jesus, remarking upon the grandeur of the Temple and its precincts, Jesus, who loved the Temple dearly from when he was a boy, said that there would soon come a time when not one stone would be left upon a stone.”
A CHRISTMAS HYMN
A stable lamp is lighted
Whose glow shall wake the sky;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
And straw like gold shall shine;
A barn shall harbor heaven,
A stall become a shrine.
This child through David’s city
Shall ride in triumph by;
The palm shall strew its branches,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
Though heavy, dull, and dumb,
And lie within the roadway
To pave his kingdom come.
Yet he shall be forsaken,
And yielded up to die;
The sky shall groan and darken,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
For stony hearts of men:
God’s blood upon the spearhead,
God’s love refused again.
But now, as at the ending,
The low is lifted high;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
In praises of the child
By whose descent among us
The worlds are reconciled.
-Richard Wilbur
“What Herod did then, is still being done by so many present day Herods. This scarred and wounded world is the world into which Jesus was born, the world he came to save, and amongst those brought by his blood through the grave and gate of death and into the bliss of Heaven are those children of Bethlehem who died for his name without ever knowing him.”
So Malcolm Guite introduces his poem on the occasion of the commemoration of the Holy Innocents, the Hebrew children of whom Herod ordered the massacre, in an attempt to do away with a perceived challenger to his power. This poem is found in Guite’s anthology, Waiting on the Word.
REFUGEE
We think of him as safe beneath the steeple,
Or cosy in a crib beside the font,
But he is with a million displaced people
On the long road of weariness and want.
For even as we sing our final carol
His family is up and on that road,
Fleeing the wrath of someone else’s quarrel,
Glancing behind and shouldering their load.
Whilst Herod rages still from his dark tower
Christ clings to Mary, fingers tightly curled,
The lambs are slaughtered by the men of power,
And death squads spread their curse across the world.
But every Herod dies, and comes alone
To stand before the Lamb upon the throne.
-Malcolm Guite
You can read the whole post and hear Fr. Guite reading his poem here: “The Holy Innocents (Refugee)”
THE MAGI
Christmas Eve, the Word made Flesh,
We put the baby in the manger,
But could not add them to the crèche—
They still had miles of doubt and danger.
They set out from the staircase landing,
Traveling lightly and untrammeled:
One was kneeling, one was standing,
And our favorite was cameled.
Past falling cards and other perils
They crossed the piano’s dark plateau
Where someone fumbled Christmas carols
And sang of silence, stars and snow.
They camped wherever they were able,
A potted fern for an oasis.
From shelf to windowsill to table,
Night by night, we’d change their places.
The thrill of our own gifts forgot,
No longer new, the batteries
Gone dead, at last they’d reach the spot,
One king already on his knees,
One kneeling, while the camel grunted—
Twelve whole days of Christmas hence—
To give what no child ever wanted:
Gold and myrrh and frankincense.
-A.E. Stallings
Gladsome Lights 