Christmas 2019
We travel this route across desert searching
Souls weighed down by horror and despair.
Artificial trees shimmer. On top
Silvery frayed stars of Bethlehem blink on off/on off.
Herod has returned from the dead.
May he live forever.
May his ears never be free of the screams
And cries of children ripped from their parents’ arms.
May he dream nightly of a wall of gaping black plastic bags full of soccer balls
And baby dolls. May he wake in terror soaked in their tears.
May gusts of wind wrap, wrack and rattle any structure where he lays his head
As Rachel’s ghost howls with weeping and lamentation
For children confined in a cage.
The Magi had a star to follow: angels sent messages in dreams.
We search the sky for a sign, a beacon,
A single ray of light to pierce us through.
