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Two Christmas Poems

Joseph O'Brien
Joseph O'Brien

Native Scene

  • The beasts of Jerusalem will murder him, but in the meantime the beasts of Bethlehem warm him with their breath. — Giovanni Papini
  • Nights are still cold on the starry hillside;
  • Dew still freezes in our sockets at dawn;
  • Our flocks still stir at a tree’s windy shade,
  • Moonlit and star-crossed, now and now again.
  • In camp, we still sound David’s ditties on long
  • Winter nights and the trade still goes, father
  • To son. A ewe’s birthing-bleat stills our song
  • And calls us back to scenes of another:
  • A brute moldy odor stunk up the hay,
  • Cows munched and passed the new into roughage,
  • And lice jump from stall to stall. You might say
  • All these were keepsakes, too, for heart’s old age.
  • But it’s only right. Beasts should have been there
  • First. Didn’t they see the world first, unspoiled
  • And native as the ruddy-faced mother,
  • The chafed flesh of her winter-glowing child?
  • The quick and measured jets of breath halted
  • At our entrance. Each looked on with an im-
  • Patient flap of an ear, heads piqued and tilted.
  • Yes, each seemed to say, it’s been a long time.

Christmas

…cujus coelesti mysterio pascimur et potamur.

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  • No blood would pass, and maidenhead unabridged
  • Retained a purity beyond all words —
  • All words but One of course. Yet double-edged
  • To spit her heart and turn her sorrow, swords
  • Would point her toward another moment cradled
  • By wood before she lifted up and coddled
  • His body once again. While Bethlehem
  • Will drink the blood not his, Jerusalem
  • Remains in shadows not his — for King Herod
  • Will wait. He sleeps in peace. But innocence
  • Today awakes this hour of recompense
  • For evergreen and blood’s more fragile merit;
  • Each announces in a tremendous way
  • The hue and cry that colors Christmas day.
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Joseph O'Brien
Joseph O'Brien

Native Scene

  • The beasts of Jerusalem will murder him, but in the meantime the beasts of Bethlehem warm him with their breath. — Giovanni Papini
  • Nights are still cold on the starry hillside;
  • Dew still freezes in our sockets at dawn;
  • Our flocks still stir at a tree’s windy shade,
  • Moonlit and star-crossed, now and now again.
  • In camp, we still sound David’s ditties on long
  • Winter nights and the trade still goes, father
  • To son. A ewe’s birthing-bleat stills our song
  • And calls us back to scenes of another:
  • A brute moldy odor stunk up the hay,
  • Cows munched and passed the new into roughage,
  • And lice jump from stall to stall. You might say
  • All these were keepsakes, too, for heart’s old age.
  • But it’s only right. Beasts should have been there
  • First. Didn’t they see the world first, unspoiled
  • And native as the ruddy-faced mother,
  • The chafed flesh of her winter-glowing child?
  • The quick and measured jets of breath halted
  • At our entrance. Each looked on with an im-
  • Patient flap of an ear, heads piqued and tilted.
  • Yes, each seemed to say, it’s been a long time.

Christmas

…cujus coelesti mysterio pascimur et potamur.

Sponsored
Sponsored
  • No blood would pass, and maidenhead unabridged
  • Retained a purity beyond all words —
  • All words but One of course. Yet double-edged
  • To spit her heart and turn her sorrow, swords
  • Would point her toward another moment cradled
  • By wood before she lifted up and coddled
  • His body once again. While Bethlehem
  • Will drink the blood not his, Jerusalem
  • Remains in shadows not his — for King Herod
  • Will wait. He sleeps in peace. But innocence
  • Today awakes this hour of recompense
  • For evergreen and blood’s more fragile merit;
  • Each announces in a tremendous way
  • The hue and cry that colors Christmas day.
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