Unboxing the Nativity

 UNBOXING THE NATIVITY

The clay figures recline inanimate 

and cold, stiff bodies prostrate

in their boxes as they wait 

for the season of waiting to break

through Ordinary Time like a virgin’s

voice piercing the night to call her children

home. Room must first be cleared

in those areas grown cluttered

through the year with the chaos

of living, and then the Theotokos

there, in the center, the warm child

pulsing in her calloused, inexperienced 

hands. One by one they draw near 

like winter’s pilgrims to a fire,

and something latent begins to thaw

then, stirring as they face this infant

made of just such clay as theirs: three mind-

weary magi come to the tenuous end 

of knowing, a couple tired shepherds, 

a smattering of sheep who offered

the chance will up and lose themselves.

And one other looks on, not of the original cast, 

hoping himself to become something more 

than a cold, inanimate figure.