A Christmas Poem

I am still in the Christmas spirit. As I write, I am listening to my favorite Christmas Album, "A Charlie Brown Christmas" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. Somehow a boys' choir combined with beautiful un-intrusive jazz music seem to me the best way to put an American Christmas to music. It seems to accompany all the emotions of Christmas. Joy to the world, spiked with melancholy, as if the Christ-child knew the violence that awaited him.

Anyway, I am also still in the spirit of sharing other people's writing. I am reading "A Severe Mercy" by Sheldon Vanauken. I have mixed feelings about the book - I'll sort those out when I'm done reading it. However, I thought this sonnet he wrote about the Virgin Mary was appropriate for the season.

"The Heart of Mary" by Sheldon Vanauken

Dear sister, I was human not divine
the angel left me woman as before
And when, like flame beneath my heart, I bore
The Son, I was the vestal and the shrine

My arms held heaven at my breast--not wine
But milk made blood, in which no mothering doubt
Prefigured patterns of pouring out
O Lamb! to stain the word incarnadine

The Magi saw a crown that lay ahead
But not the bitter glory of the reign
They called him King and knelt among the kine
I pondered in my heart what they had said
Yet I could not see the bloody cup of pain
I was but woman--though my God was mine