AT THE TURNING OF THE YEAR

Heavy clouds shone darkly above the hillside,
as I stood disappointed beside an empty manger.
No great star hung motionless and brilliant in the sullen sky,
no angels sang, no wise men rode through the night, nothing stirred
but the wind that blew dust into my eyes.

A stream nearby chivying the lazy reeds
murmured  “Look within yourself and your heart’s eye
will find the shepherds and the angels,
the Magi and Mary’s baby in his star-lit cradle.”
“Go” whispered the breeze lingering in the icy grass,
“follow the unchanging way which leads every weary soul to that light.”

Suddenly, in the cold still night on that empty hillside silent
beneath its leaden canopy, there were shepherds
fallen to their knees beside their midnight fire.
The dazzled sky was full of angels, whose mighty Hallelujahs
shook the branches of the olive tree
and warmed the night with the radiance of their song.

A train of grunting camels swayed over the rim of the world,
carrying tall men from the East in robes of scarlet and purple and gold,
dignified silhouettes against the coming of a new golden dawn.
Out of the shadows, from over the hills, across the rivers, down the valleys,
surged a thousand generations of pilgrims
come to honour the child, eternal paradigm of faith and hope and love.

A wide-eyed shepherd boy, his young lamb held close, walked beside me
along that crowded joyful road to Bethlehem, to witness
and to celebrate the old year’s dying, the new year’s resurrection 
and the promise made before the world began.
Which is now again to be fulfilled.