dirt, dung, the weight
upon hoof and sandal so permanent
in seeming. Everything miraculous
arrives in the world of breath, cold,
foul straw, wood rotten with use, oily wool
and the rush of cow stale onto the ground.
Crowds fill the narrow alleys and streets
outside, tallying numbers again,
birth and death their only kingdom.
These beasts might as well believe.
They do. Tethered to one more
child of billions, they know this short life
of burden and lash. They feel
with his growling hungers, wait for
love to materialize, insistent
as rut and feed herding us together
on a date no one agrees upon,
prepared to sleep on frozen ground,
the pain over and barely begun,
mutual breath holding on,
rhythms of listening instinct, that small
cry against her cold, warm breast.
SHEPHERD
Bones cold as these stones,
leggings scratching pimpled skin,
carrying nothing but time,
a crooked stick and motherless lamb,
not one of us lucky enough
to be even half-drunk.
Stars so many points of ice
save one glowing through
an orange shroud, driving
its crossed spears of light
into the frozen ground.
This star seems to move,
setting small fires to the backs
of the sheep, their spindly shanks
and dark eyes too much like ours.
I grow uneasy. What I knew
leaves me as mist, breath.
My body, a dusty window,
fills with light. I hear singing,
harmonies like my own voice.
Hearing of this birth,
I thought of my father and son,
myself both son and father.
One more child of this local dirt.
I move without moving
through sheep who stare
and chew, drift over hills
I knew once, to a cave’s golden
mouth, myself a shadow
thrown against the golden wall,
slowly entering.
THE SECOND SHEPHERD
It is cold. The bull by the door
has flecks of ice on his nose.
Sheep wool is stiff bristles.
Everywhere the breath of animals
fogs and steams, their visible spirits.
I am always cold and barely notice.
Frozen hoof ruts make standing hard.
Beside the small dung fire the woman
dries the child, cleans him with wool
and ice water warmed by her breath.
One more child, I think again, as I have
from the first rumors, the whispered portents.
I am here, doubt alive and well
as this tiny one, rubbed to a glow
by the coarse wool and staring blindly around.
I think of my own four, hungry
often as not, dirty and loved
when I have time. One more child.
As if the one god, Yahweh—I know
enough to know if there is a god at all,
he will be one—would inhabit
with spirit this cold flesh. Messiah
a man I understand. King. Warrior.
Our own child. Dung and hoof-dents.
The song I hear might be
my mother’s old melody
that sang me to sleep despite the hunger.
How well I remember her, dead at 28.
Now this woman sings, something like it.
How lovely it is, how it fills.
I will go soon. Why did I come
or linger? What hope throws stars
across the sky, ropes muscle into walking,
stalks every move tonight? I must be mad
or dreaming. I will leave. I will go home.
As soon as her song is done.
THE LAST SHEPHERD
I stayed here on the hill, with the flock.
Somebody had to. I told them, Don’t expect
me
