Those were unpromising times in the Promised Land.
High taxes.
Refugees.
Incipient terror lurking, while
rampaging autocrats compete in the high halls of power.
No place for an expectant mother and her anxious spouse.
No place for a baby.
In Ethiopian icons (like the one above) the figures gaze obliquely at each other
with luminous eyes.
Even the animal onlookers watch, wide-eyed and wondering,
with eyes that see beyond Bethlehem, beyond Ethiopia, beyond us
and our own unpromising times.
The saintly glances, averted from the scene, seem drawn to some off-stage
action,
As if to see all births, all refugees, tyrants and terrorists of other times, popes
and presidents of the future and the past.
Their eyes are large to behold a larger world,
A world including us as we are truly seen: awe-struck asses, ogling oxen,
nimbic babies basking in light
beaming from our mothers’ open eyes.
Christ Mass 2017
with luminous eyes.
Even the animal onlookers watch, wide-eyed and wondering,
with eyes that see beyond Bethlehem, beyond Ethiopia, beyond us
and our own unpromising times.
The saintly glances, averted from the scene, seem drawn to some off-stage
action,
As if to see all births, all refugees, tyrants and terrorists of other times, popes
and presidents of the future and the past.
Their eyes are large to behold a larger world,
A world including us as we are truly seen: awe-struck asses, ogling oxen,
nimbic babies basking in light
beaming from our mothers’ open eyes.
Christ Mass 2017
