A Christmas vision

I wrote this poem last year. It traveled to some interesting places before finding itself in the newsletter of an African church. It describes a little Christmas ritual of mine.

every Christmas Eve
not knowing fully why
I go outside to peer into the night sky

half expecting to see
the galactic door ajar
and the glimpse of one illusive sparkling star -

its mystic message showered
over the sleeping world
a secret swathed in swaddling transiently uncurled

for the watching ones
seeking eternity
here on earth - a brief insight of what might be

if this planet's people
with clarity of mind
could leave all their extraneous cravings far behind

and searching deep inside
their starry souls forgive
themselves and honor other ways that we could live -

receiving joy from giving -
not needing power - and light
encompassing the living from infinite heights

(our heart's heights) - who can tell
where that star could lead
in a struggling world of meagerness and greed -

so I raise my face
as the hour is bowed
although most times the sky is only filled with cloud

but hope lifts up its eyes
to the hills of faith -
a child is love - and love could save the human race -

it is that star I seek
in my reflective gaze
into the hazy heights beyond my living days


© Hazel SS Hall
6 December 2011