Wayne Christeson wrote this some years ago, and I read it again every Christmas. The best Christmas writing ever. Hoping It Might Be So for Anne I am going down to the barn, Anne said, as she often does at night when she goes to clean the stalls and spread fresh straw for the horses. Except that this was Christmas Eve, and she added, You know, the animals talk at midnight. It is an old loved story from her childhood which at some level I am certain she believes. I was immediately touched by the thought of the horses-- the warmth of their large gentle bodies, shifting quietly as she moves among them, nuzzling for carrots and filling the stalls with their sweet grain-fed breath. It was almost too much to imagine that they might speak of the Christ Child too. And I thought again of the way Thomas Hardy spoke in The Oxen of the devoted, protecting animals ponderously kneeling around the child, filling their humble places in the world, as in a dream from childhood. The Oxen Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. Now they are all on their knees, An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease. We pictured the meek mild creatures where They lay in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then. So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! Yet I feel If someone said on Christmas Eve, Come; see the oxen kneel, In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know, I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so. I tried to recite the poem for Anne as she left, but the words caught in my throat. So I simply said, Maybe the animals will talk to you. And I hoped it might be so.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 01:39:51 +0000
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