Poem for Christmas 2019

Such a World as This

Sacred infant, all divine,
what a tender love was thine,

thus to come from highest bliss

down to such a world as this.

                                                                                    (From See Amid the Winter’s Snow)

If it’s bliss you seek, pick potions, pills;

give the cash (take the crash) call it cure-for-all-ills.

Or breathing deep: in thus, thus out;

your consciousness raised, bliss hazed is about.

And kisses and hugs – they make for it shared,

though not with such ease as you may have heard.

Songs’ gladness, scents’ glory, sun’s glimmer – the lot –

bring bliss to the senses, look (look) what you’ve got!

And

yet

away    from bliss is the move that heals,

away    and apart and alone (see He steals).

Bliss but a whisper; a dream in rare sleep;

                                                grasped moments of comfort; no joy you can keep.

            And down from the heights to the depths, to what’s wild,

                        from heaven to hellish hatred (hail Child).

                                    For this is the world: it is such; it is so -

                                                this Witness, though wordless, compels us to know.

So

bliss

what then of it? Are we made for its shaping?

Or the void with its pain is the law, maw gaping?

‘It is worth it, is worth it (your worth I restore).

With or without, live on; there is more.’

So easy to preach, so hard to prove truly,

and harder still to live through-and-throughly.

But the call is the same - though fate rushes and crushes,

or pleasures deal dull,

still His birth-goodness gushes.

(c) Patrick Morrow