In the iron winter days
we sense them moving on bare hills
like inklings, omens:
wise ones coming from afar
with eager sun-dried faces
under heavy brows,
their curiosity a thing of wonder.
They’ve been riding hard for months
on lumpy camels,
with a growing certainty that’s patience
magnified by faith in what will come,
now fixing on a star
that hovers in their brains
above a barn, far out of sight.
Our prayers have failed us,
so we listen as we wait for them,
this company of allies, aids
on this blue-bleak midwinter
where—in silence we have not imagined,
in its frost of solitude—
they will find us waiting:
For the desert wisdom of their coming.
For their slice of light on sand,
the purple shadows and the scent of grapes,
the blood-bright juice
that brings us faithfully again together
in this room of need, where
surely they find us—kneeling, still.