Epiphany

 

Drop your reins.

Let the camel lead you,

the animal

of your breathing.

Follow the star

between your eyebrows

over the empty desert

of yearning

into the valley of your

missing rib.

Something unspeakable

is born here

in the night of the heart

because there was no room

at the inn, which is of course

your mind.

A whinny in the dark,
a moo of contentment,
barn smells of

straw dust and dove,
mist of ewe breath
in the sheepfold. 

Here is a stable 

for the lost and weary.

Over the feeding trough

a lady gazes down

into the hay.

Has someone lit

a little fire?

Strange beams fall upward,

but their warmth

is familiar, spilling 

a tender incandescence  

as of distant starlight 

come home.

The lady's face, bemused

not so much

with amazement

as with the certainty

that nothing could ever

surprise her again.

Who is born here

 if not you? 

 Be the bread.

 Be the oil. 

 Be the nail in the

 wooden roof beam.

 Feed shepherds.

 Anoint kings. 

 Anoint donkeys too. 

 Turn everything you touch

 into Christ.

 Image: detail from Adoration by Notti