Let me mention
one or two things about Christmas.
Of course you’ve all heard
that the animals talk
at midnight:
a particular elk, for instance,
kneeling at night to drink,
leaning tall to pull leaves,
with his soft lips
says, alleluia.
That the soil and fresh-water lakes
also rejoice.
as do products
such as sweaters
(nor are plastics excluded
from grace),
is less well known.
Further:
the reason
for some silly-looking fishes
for the bizarre mating
of certain adult insects,
or the sprouting, say,
in a snow tire
of Rocky Mountain grass,
is that the universal
loves the particular,
that freedom loves to live
and live fleshed full,
intricate,
and in detail.
God empties himself
into the earth like a cloud,
God takes the substance, contours,
of a man, and keeps them,
dying, rising, walking,
and still walking,
wherever there is motion.
