Eve of the Nativity

 

I. Nativity

As you lean in, you'll surely apprehend

the tiny God is wrapped

in something more than swaddle.  The God

is tightly bound within

His blesséd mother's gaze--her face declares

that she is rapt by what

she holds, beholds, reclines beholden to.

She cups His perfect head

and kisses Him, that even here the radiant

compass of affection

is announced, that even here our several

histories converge and slip,

just briefly, out of time.  Which is much of what 

an icon works as well,

and this one offers up a broad array

of separate narratives

whose temporal relations quite miss the point,

or meet there.  Regardless,

one blithe shepherd offers music to the flock,

and--just behind him--there

he is again, and sore afraid, attended

by a trembling companion

and addressed by Gabriel.  Across the ridge,

three wise men spur three horses

towards a star, and bowing at the icon's

nearest edge, these same three

yet adore the seated One whose mother serves

as throne.  Meantime, stumped,

the kindly Abba Joseph ruminates,

receiving consolation

from an attentive dog whose master may

yet prove to be a holy

messenger disguised as a fool.  Overhead,

the famous star is all

but out of sight by now; yet, even so,

it aims a single ray

directing our slow pilgrims to the core

where all the journeys meet,

appalling crux and hallowed cave and womb,

where crouched among these other

lowing cattle at their trough, our travelers

receive that creatured air, and pray.

                        --Scott Cairns, from the poem Two Icons 

                                                    in Compass of Affection