The Nativity of YouBryan, my brother, Rob, my sister-in-love, Kristin, and I have a tradition. On the years that we're together for the holidays, we write poems for each other as Christmas presents. Tonight, after the kids tore into packages, played with new toys and were tucked in bed; the four of us sat by our fire sipping mulled cider and sharing our wordy gifts.
This is my offering to Kristin seven months pregnant with her first child, a baby boy:
The Nativity of Mary . . . The Nativity of You
for Kristin from Sally December 2007
Miraculous Sprout in the Root of Jesse, Line of David
A Magical Gift in a long genealogical line of Real, Wild, Crazy
Luminescent Gabriel pronounces the improbable splendor
Faint Line on plastic stick lauds your Miracle
Manger’s cattle trough waiting and ready, open and anticipatory
Chocolate brown and azure nursery welcomes, invites: Come!
Rough handed, warm-hearted, dream-believing Carpenter
Brilliant, book-reading, dream-believing Attorney, speechless
Earth-round belly leaping at the Baptizer in uterine encounter
Elbows, heels, bottom and toes touch Waiting Believers
She is forever enlarged, changed, redeemed
You are forever delivered, renewed, reborn
The Wordless One becomes the Word
Your Silent Seed burgeons crying, “Life!”
Natal Star of Bethlehem radiating, an intergalactic halo
Handmade birth announcements extend exuberant Nimbus of News
Stinky, swearing shepherds visit, she welcomes in postpartum fragility
Basketball Players, Anxious Aunties, Friends and Well-wishers travel to greet
Maji perilously plodding, stringing camels, bearing gold, frankincense, myrrh
Wise Women offer hand-knit booties, giraffe, onesies, sagacious maternal advice
Isreal’s Bethlehem ineluctably touched by God
The City of Angels irrevocably populated by Big Little Man
His name shall be Emmanuel
His name will be Durham
The quotidian reality of God conceived in you
for Kristin from Sally December 2007
Miraculous Sprout in the Root of Jesse, Line of David
A Magical Gift in a long genealogical line of Real, Wild, Crazy
Luminescent Gabriel pronounces the improbable splendor
Faint Line on plastic stick lauds your Miracle
Manger’s cattle trough waiting and ready, open and anticipatory
Chocolate brown and azure nursery welcomes, invites: Come!
Rough handed, warm-hearted, dream-believing Carpenter
Brilliant, book-reading, dream-believing Attorney, speechless
Earth-round belly leaping at the Baptizer in uterine encounter
Elbows, heels, bottom and toes touch Waiting Believers
She is forever enlarged, changed, redeemed
You are forever delivered, renewed, reborn
The Wordless One becomes the Word
Your Silent Seed burgeons crying, “Life!”
Natal Star of Bethlehem radiating, an intergalactic halo
Handmade birth announcements extend exuberant Nimbus of News
Stinky, swearing shepherds visit, she welcomes in postpartum fragility
Basketball Players, Anxious Aunties, Friends and Well-wishers travel to greet
Maji perilously plodding, stringing camels, bearing gold, frankincense, myrrh
Wise Women offer hand-knit booties, giraffe, onesies, sagacious maternal advice
Isreal’s Bethlehem ineluctably touched by God
The City of Angels irrevocably populated by Big Little Man
His name shall be Emmanuel
His name will be Durham
The quotidian reality of God conceived in you
LOVE
LOVE
A couple of weeks after writing this poem, I got an e-mail from Ron Grossman, a Chicago Tribune Staff Reporter. In the e-mail, he wrote: Those of us who are parents are blessed: the Talmud observes that little children are the messiahs of this world. I smiled a scimitar smile as I read his words; and considered the ways my children have been kings and spiritual leaders in my life. Their idealism, aggressive crusades, immutable hopeful fervors have forever changed my husband and me. I can't wait to see the messianic deliverance that comes to Rob and Kristin when they deliver Durham! Get ready, get ready!!!
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