The Hush
The hush before a baby's cry
Rolls restless scrolls of prophesy:
The quelling of the ancient storm
Makes seas grow calm and winds blow warm:
Yet God incarnate born to die
Alone amid hostility
Lies tightly swaddled in the straw
Far from the vision they foresaw.
A mitre and a kingly crown,
An altar and a golden throne
Encompassed in a feeding trough
Of nails coarse and timber rough:
A pipe but not a trumpet blown,
A wriggling lamb, all bleat and bone,
Imparts its feeble warmth but then
The new-born baby cries again.
The lord of all reduced to prize
His mother's breast and restless eyes,
All power decanted to retain
His solidarity with pain.
The vulnerable fool defies
The iron logic of the wise,
And echoes in his infant breath
The weakness of his pointless death.