"Joseph" - December 24, 2013

For the past several years, I have written a poem instead of a sermon for Christmas Eve, picturing what might have been the meditation of various characters or even inanimate objects associated with Jesus’ birth.  In past years that has meant the Star of Bethlehem, a sheep, an angel, a shepherd, the streets of Bethlehem, and so forth.  This year the speaker is Joseph.

There’s no expression for the guilt I felt

at having brought her to this crowded town

without a plan.

What kind of man

could let things reach the point at which I knelt

beside a feeding trough and bedded down

a newborn?  Sure, I used what was on hand,

but straw can scratch

and he could catch

who-knows-what from the animals around,

that still press in whatever way they can –

as if he were their own.  I’d made one rash

decision, then

made one again –

so much unlike me – since this all began.

I felt I’d wrecked us all.  I boldly dashed

over a cliff and took them with me when

(based on a dream!

no more, it seems)

I said I’d marry her and, unabashed

about the pregnancy, offered to lend

propriety to what I’d deemed

a shameful mess –

no more, no less.

And now?  I couldn’t give a thing to them.

I couldn’t shelter them.  I was ashamed.

She was exhausted, and I watched her rest

her tired form

to keep her warm

against a donkey’s flank.  You know I blamed

myself for having thought through nothing, just

assuming angels (angels!) would all swarm

down from the sky

and they’d provide

the roof, the warmth, the food.  How had I thrust

my common sense away?  The child was born,

my wife was sleeping on the ground, and I

could only stare,

too much aware

of what we lacked.  My heart was bruised and torn.

I will admit that I began to cry

(but quietly – I wouldn’t let her share

my worry, not

when she’d just got

through childbirth).  Then, from the straw, an eye

peered out beneath a wrinkled lid, and there

and then I knew – I don’t know what –

a kind of peace

that hasn’t ceased,

and now, my friend, goes with me everywhere.