Around the stable
stars cartwheel.

A woman steps
from the inn

Potato peeler in hand
to enter the stable.

As she approaches
to gaze at the infant

Potato peelings curl
at the foot of the manger.

The hay lights the crib
in all directions,

Scattered strokes of yellow
swirl.

In the background,
Joseph and Mary,
quiet onlookers.

Their bundled child
draws all eyes.

Even Vincent is here
painted in the corner.

His red beard
catches the eye,

Clashes with the canvas.
A dissonant chord,
his signature.

Love lit my wick.
Now little deaths gut me.
Steadily hand over hand
down a rope I go.
Eviscerate me, fire.
Let my flame wax
as I wane.
While my spine juggles fire
and breathes flame,
I am at my wick’s end.

Keep watch.
My wax wells and melts.
Like a trapeze artist,
I radiate heat
and spin.
I am a live wire.
Love lit my wick.
Pluck me now.
Watch me flicker
as I fade.

We love dawn
because it is
so much like
our own awakening,
such a slow stretching
into the light.

Birds fly
with bones
that are hollowed.
This is the hollowing
time, the giving
over. I have
nothing left
to give you
save my marrow.
This is the hallowing
time, the season
of holy. I
can offer only
the blank page
of tomorrow.

What a puzzle
it all is.
Find the right word,
the focal puzzle piece,
and suddenly,
it all fits.
A leaf suspended
in air
floats
towards the dry riverbed.

How beautiful
to see leaves
of gold
trapped underneath
panes of ice
frosted
by the breath
of the world.

The beauty and the pain:
Cold pierces like a knife.
Overhead
a thousand snow geese call
and fly
in uniform motion,
their brawny wings
carving the air.

At your cradle here I stand
Neither shepherd nor angel
But onlooker
To holy mystery.

Hillside cave is the darkroom,
Heaven’s aperture,
Breathing life
From image into likeness.

Eve knows what she lost
When she tasted the plum,
Red juice staining her hand,
But Mary’s consent brings salvation.

At the cradle here I stand
Where the Child’s birth
Transforms our darkness into light
Like carbon transfigured into diamond.

Immortal fire, pierce this darkness.

As a child
trudging through snow
I loved the blank page
of fresh fallen snow,
beautiful in its vast whiteness.
I hated to see footsteps
mar earth’s cloak of white
and when I walked
I tried to fit
my feet into
paths already made.
Yet now I know
muddied steps
through fields of white
yield to the muddied
strength of spring.

Like a trapezoid
confined to a rectangle
the angel stooped to an earth
closeted by angles.
Mary, hiding herself behind his wing,
sheltered in its comforting shade.
Around the edge
of the wing’s circumference,
an unaccustomed brilliance gathered
like sunlight reflecting
off the curvature of the sea.
Improbable epiphany,
unlikely reflection:
you will fly.
She pondered the message
in her heart
like a hungry eaglet
hearing the words:
“You too will fly.”

Witness to farflung mystery,
light penetrated
the darkness of wings
as heat and warmth.
The hunger of talon and beak,
maternal and paternal love,
embodied in a windspun
spreadeagled
shape
looming on the horizon,
neither heavy nor light,
balanced, perched, stirring winds,
striving.

Like a ray,
Mary, circumspect,
juxtaposed
ache of being
with carefree aerie,
arched heavenward,
homing
like a dove.

Sunlight gilt the edges of his wings
like the painted borders
of an illuminated manuscript:
Feast for the soul.
Earthward,
freefalling,
windswept—
Mary opened like a blossom
or a book;
then closed.

From his aerie,
the eagle judged the distance bridged,
balanced an equation.
Bird, swing over the sea!
Windswept waves,
roll and wrinkle
underneath bird’s wing!
Winds wept for this child,
Mary’s son:
Breath of prophets’ whispered words,
Child who interposes heaven’s lightness
in earth’s solid core.