Mary, quick, resourceful in the moment,
Spies a manger* and makes a bed
For her newborn son.
Strange, these startling times
Jammed with angels;
Babies named John and Jesus arrive
On heaven’s cue
While wide-eyed mothers laugh out words—
“Barren no more!” and “Who? Me? I have never
Ever known a man.”
God scripted the angels’ song that
Sweeps the fields of sheep and shepherds.
“Manger*” is heaven’s word; the swaddled one
Points, sign-worthy, to deep inscrutability,
To mysterious maneuvers
As God, the newborn,
Wiggles on earth.
Let us be swift, run with the herdsmen
Who, on angel orders,
Seek the Child—
The good news baby
Born when and where
As promised.
For even Imperial power stoops
As God’s servant
On this fateful Bethlehem night.
There it is, the manger.*
There he is, the Son, the Sign, the Savior.
Mary, quiet, reflective in the moment.
*I’m fascinated by the three references to the manger
in the Luke 2 narrative. John Greco helps us feel
the anomaly of the manger by imagining we enter
the maternity room of a newborn and find the child
curled in a dog dish on the floor.