Late in the Evening on Christmas Eve - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Late in the Evening on Christmas Eve

 

After breakfast with a friend

After setting up for a family luncheon

After a family luncheon that never seemed to end

After cleaning up after a family luncheon

          (and that, too, never seemed to end)

After a moment of sitting and thinking with wife and child

After opening gifts (with dachshunds and cats)

After sharing gifts (with dachshunds and cats)

After keeping dachshunds and cats from eating the tree ornaments

After watching Judy Garland sing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”

After sitting exhausted with a therapeutic episode of The Office

You realize

The day wasn’t so bad

You Were in Bethlehem - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

You Were in Bethlehem – Don’t You Remember?

 

Setting up the family Creche

 

When you were a little child you knelt before

The Infant Jesus there in Bethlehem

Among the animals you placed your toys:

Barbie and Buzz, and Woody the Cowboy too

 

Even the Wise Men smiled to hear you sing

To the Holy Family your baby songs

In cold Judaea in the long ago

The Christmas story is true, and you were there

 

And so forever

 

You are a Christmas child and kneel before

The Infant Jesus – here in Bethlehem

But the Animals were First

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

But the Animals were First

 

“We read in Isaiah: ‘The ox knows its owner,

and the ass the master’s crib….’”

 

-Papa Benedict, The Blessings of Christmas

 

The ox and ass are in the Stable set

In service divine, as good Isaiah writes

A congregation of God’s creatures met

In honor of their King this Night of nights

And there they wait for us, for we are late

Breathless in the narthex of eternity

A star, a road, a town, an inn, a gate

Have led us to this holy liturgy:

Long centuries and seasons pass, and yet

The ox and ass are in the Stable set.