One

Winter, and very cold,

and the night at

its deepest. The politicians,

as usual, double-tongued.

The town chaotic, teeming

with strangers.

And tonight, as often

in winter, in Bethlehem,

snow is falling.

I always love

how each flake,

torn from the sky,

arrives separately,

without sound, almost

unnoticed in

a flurry of others. How

each one (on a clear

night) likes there glittering

on the swelling breast

of snow, crisp

and intact, as wholly itself

as every radiant star

in a sky sparkling

with galaxies.

How many new

babies tonight

in Judea, coming

like snowflakes?

But plucked,

dazzling, from the

eternal heavens

into time,

tonight is born

The One.

Shaw, Luci. "One." Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub., 2006. 19-20, 24.