Luke 2:1-7
_ It was the time Augustus Caesar had cried pax
As children used to do, and said the world must now be taxed,
_ When Joseph, following the government decree,
Went out of Nazareth and travelled down through Galilee.
_ If words are put into a prophet’s mouth, and before
He knows it, he’s uttered them beside the trembling posts of the door,
_ Then Caesar’s made unwittingly an agent of God’s
And Joseph’s destination is, against all the world’s odds,
_ The one that destiny and Micah once decreed.
Each little act they performed there becomes for us a deed
_ Of great significance, but in the ancient text
You’ll find no search for a place, no donkey, no Joseph vexed
_ By three refractory innkeepers, no ass and ox,
No treasured doll that’s laid inside a painted Amazon box
_ And children crawling around as sheep, causing mayhem.
We are just told it was, when they arrived in Bethlehem,
_ That the days of Mary’s pregnancy came to a close
And she brought forth her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes,
_ And laid him in a manger, since there was no room,
No, not in Tyndale’s inn, or Virgil’s, or that of Jerome.
Feature Image: A painting of Bethlehem by Vasily Polenov, 1882