What deepest cold
(From the other side of Christmas)
16. Dec. 2000


What deepest cold did pattern
Such sorrow as to rob liquefaction from angel tears?
Betwixt shouts of joy that covered earth
Tears fell still, midst all the holy mirth;
Tears that did from luminescent visage flow
Didst surely become precipitate crystal here below.
Ponder this, mortal progeny of mortal man -
Was it for seraphic choirs
To hold in comprehension the eternal plan?
That soft infant hands
Now in new life meekly, weakly clenching tight
Should wounded, pierced, stretched out be by they
Ever in sacrosanct singularity blinded to the Light?
Did they who sang glorias
Accompanied by the music of the spheres,
Know that That which did divide the then from now -
And the yet to be -
Would, puncturing rifted time
Be thus rift by time in a span of years?
Do they know --
What frigid hearts He came thus to save?
How frigid hearts would lay
This tattered flesh, cold upon the grave?
Is it for the cold that He shall feel,
That tintinabulous carillons forever peal?
Is that why the snow falls from the sky?
Is that what makes the angels cry?