SILENT NIGHT BROKEN NIGHT

I’ve posted several times about La Natividad, the Christmas event (Encounter? Experience? It’s hard to pin it down), that we do with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater. Saturday night was the last night this year, but its heart continues to beat in me,

This year was all the more poignant, with the husband of one of the Mary’s in the play deported, with the deaths of Jim from the theater and Ralph from the church, the children killed in Connecticut, all the dying in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine and Israel, so many places. When I said my last words in the show, I opened my arms to say: "We open our arms to welcome this child, and all the children of the earth". This year my arms felt burdened with the promise, with the hope. But the story, the courageous people who walk the way of peace every day, and the Holy Child helped me keep them up.

Someplace during the last crazy three weeks, I shared with someone that one of the things I appreciate about La Natividad is that it is not afraid to hit the "minor" key, as well as the "major" key of the Christmas story. That is, we don't leave out the pain between Mary and Joseph, nor the terror of King Herod. I believe that because we tell the whole story, it makes the hope, the peace and the love more profound.

My poem below tries to get at the wonder of finding love and joy in the midst of struggle.

SILENT NIGHT BROKEN NIGHT

Maria stumbles on the road

into town and falls, baby first
on the baked earth.  Joseph
stares at his virgin bride,
his exile, his horn of plenty. He crouches
to help her up, but she shouts “No!”
He must apologize for the strange
look in his eyes, for handling her       
like a stone the moment he first
knew who made her weight.  The stars,

pin pricks on the skin

of heaven, look down upon
the children of earth, frozen
in the wounding that precedes hope.
No words redeem the time,
or take the pain away.  There is
sinew and bone break and breath.

Maria and Joseph look at each other
in the last dirt before Bethlehem.
Their eyes are cradles where no child
has yet been lain.  Joseph nods,
leans Maria into his shoulder,
and as the two rise as one, her water
breaks onto her robes and his,
his feet and hers, the dust, the stone,
the river under it all.

They walk, quicker now.  No

donkey, no angel, no choir.  Just
the hurried birth racing like wind.
Run, Joseph, procure a hovel;
walk fast, Maria, your pain summons;
stay, oh angel choir: there must
be more dying before this birth.

Here—the stable; here—hay

and straw enough. His skin will be
wrapped in the softest cloth. 
Poor men will bring songs
of lambs.  This child will
not tarry; his name rushes
headlong through the dark
tunnel. The word will go
out soon enough: no house
dare hold this child.

Be justice! Be Peace! Be Joy!  Be Love to All!

 

Patrick