The Day After Christmas

For this second day of Christmas, I thought I'd share a poem, three actually.

A couple weeks ago, I was planning out my next few blog entries. Spending 10 and more hours a day on church stuff for too many days, I knew I'd want to take it easy today. (It occurred to me this week that Kay's been home nearly a month and I'd spent almost no time just sitting around with her. So Wednesday I did, and yesterday, and I hope to again today.)

My plan was that I'd try my hand at writing a diamante poem, then include another poem I've read that speaks to me. I'd never heard of diamante until my kids were writing them in school. Maybe in third grade? Each time, I thought, "that's a cool pattern for a poem." I may've even tried it, though I don't remember now.

Anyway, Thursday morning after I was sure I'd done everything I could possibly need to do to be ready for Christmas Eve services (yes, I missed something), I called Kay and invited her to write with me. She was game, so we both sat down at our keyboards. 

Via email we shared our process,though I asked for feedback more than she did. She pretty much just wrote 'til she was done, then shared the finished project. Anyway, here they are – I'll leave you to guess whose is whose – followed by Walter Brueggemann's "Christmas ... Very Next Day" from his Prayers for a Privileged People, a great collection I thoroughly recommend.

jesus

human divine

teaching caring challenging

born in obscurity, known throughout time

empowering inspiring liberating

expectant eternal

christ

ice

cold, exquisite 

freezing, adorning, bedazzling

frost, rime, solstice, celebration

quieting, sleeping, changing

long, dark 

winter

Christmas ...
Very Next Day
Had we the chance, we would have rushed
       to Bethlehem
             to see this thing that had come to pass.

Had we been a day later,
      we would have found the manger empty
            and the family departed.

We would have learned that they fled to Egypt,
      warned that the baby was endangered,
      sought by the establishment of the day
            that understood how his very life
                  threatened the way things are.

We would have paused at the empty stall
      and pondered how this baby
            from the very beginning was under threat.

The powers understood that his grace threatened all our
      coercions;
they understood that his truth challenged all our lies;
they understood that his power to heal
      nullified our many pathologies;
they understood that his power to forgive
      vetoed the power of guilt and
            the drama of debt among us.

From day one they pursued him,
      and schemed and conspired
      until finally… on a gray Friday…
            they got him!

      No wonder the family fled, in order to give him time
            for his life.

We could still pause at the empty barn—
      and ponder that all our babies are under threat, all the
            vulnerable who stand at risk

                  before predators,

      our babies who face the slow erosion of consumerism,
      our babies who face the reach of sexual exploitation,
      our babies who face the call to war,
            placed as we say, “in harm’s way,”

      our babies, elsewhere in the world,
            who know of cold steel against soft arms

            and distended bellies from lack of food;

      our babies everywhere who are caught in the fearful display
            of ruthless adult power.

We ponder how peculiar this baby at Bethlehem is,
            summoned to save the world, 

                  and yet

we know, how like every child, this one also was at risk.
      The manger is empty a day later…
            the father warned in a dream.

Our world is so at risk, and yet we seek after and wait for
            this child named “Emmanuel.”

      Come be with us, you who are called “God with us.”

Walter Brueggemann, Prayers for a Privileged People