Saturday, December 24, 2011

Christmas Eve


It is Christmas Eve.
 fifty years ago,
I was turning fifteen.
.
I slipped into the sheep pen with the wooly ones,
with an oil lamp and my harmonica.

I sat with them in the hay,
they lay all around me.

I played excerpts from Handel's Messiah,
every carol I knew,
 worshipped and sought a vision of angels,
sought unity with the holy  family,
listened for an echo from the Lord of Christmas.

The sheep were patient with my intrusion.

After midnight I went back to the house for bed.
I had not been disappointed.

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