the baby (a Christmas poem)

I wasn’t sure this was a good idea, you know–

the herald angel notwithstanding.

So much could go wrong–

we humans are so fragile, so fickle. So human.

But if ever we needed a light

in this dark world, well,

now’s the time. And so I said, “here I am.”

Don’t you think that because I was not a mother

I didn’t know what I was in for.

I was there when my sisters were born,

and my cousins, and my cousins’ cousins.

I’ve carried water from the fire,

wiped the sweat from my own mother’s face,

held a woman’s hand when the pains came

and held her leg when the baby came,

squalling, cold, and hungry.

I’ve been the one to clean up

all the blood and shit.

✦

Having babies is sacred work, for sure,

but sacred work can be messy, too, and dangerous:

not every baby comes in squalling.

Some come deathly silent

before they finally shudder and breathe,

and some – too many – never breathe at all.

Just as often it’s the mother

who doesn’t survive.

Maybe, you think, I’m being dramatic.

These were extraordinary circumstances, after all:

if things got dicey– for me or for the baby–

surely, God would intervene.

But I knew from the beginning, there was to be

no deus ex machina here, no divine intervention.

The whole point was to be human–

God-with-us, Immanuel, born of woman

and all that comes with that,

the danger, too.

✦

Then there was the matter of Josef,

my betrothed, yes, but also my beloved.

Turns out even an archangel

can only do so much

to soothe a young man’s pride.

It took me days to make him see the possibilities,

convince him to put aside

his doubts, his wounded masculinity,

for this chance to play a part

in building the world we’d dreamed of–

a world where God was not some faraway voice

or absent ruler, but with us, one of us,

and in us, woman and man.

If ever our hurting people needed a healer,

I told him, isn’t it now?

If ever we needed a teacher, a leader,

a rebel to destroy and a carpenter to rebuild,

isn’t it now?

✦

As it happened

the baby came fast, too fast for me,

and while we were away from home, too.

Neither my mother nor my sister tended the birth,

just the wives of distant cousins, strangers all

(and Josef, of course, but

what do men know of these things?)

We were lucky:

it is crowded here, but warm and bright,

and the baby has ten fingers and ten toes,

a red face, a lusty cry, and a healthy suck.

Yes, there were glories streaming

and bright stars and angels on high

singing sweetly– indeed, it seemed

all of heaven and nature sang–

but is it not this way for every mother

when her baby is born?

Is not every birth a miracle?

✦

The baby sleeps, his belly full.

All is calm, for now, but soon enough

he'll wake, and of course then

he will cry. All babies cry.

There are long nights ahead, long years

as the baby becomes a toddler,

a child, and, one day, we hope,

the kind of man who can reconcile

our people with our God.

Come, you people of faith, and see

your hopes and fears are met not here tonight

but thirty years – a lifetime – from now.

Come, lay your hands on his tiny fingers,

then set your heart to prepare his way.

Outside the winter sun is rising, at last,

but the season of darkness is not yet over.

poem (c) 2016 D. Ohlandt

please only reprint in entirety and with credit given

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