A POEM FOR CHRISTMAS by Joseph Brodsky. (trans Seamus Heaney) Imagine striking a match that night in the cave: use the cracks in the floor to feel the cold. Use crockery in order to feel the hunger. And to feel the desert - but the desert is everywhere. Imagine striking a match in that midnight cave, the fire, the farm beasts in outline, the farm tools and stuff; and imagine, as you towel your face in the towels folds, the bundled up Infant and Mary and Joseph. Imagine the kings, the caravans stilted procession as they make for the cave, or rather three beams closing in and in on the star; the creaking of loads, the clink of a cowbell; (but in the cerulean thickening over the Infant no bell and no echo of bell: He hasnt earned it yet.) Imagine the Lord, for the first time, from darkness, and stranded immensely in distance, recognising Himself in the Son of Man: homeless, going out to Himself in a homeless one.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 00:42:07 +0000
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