He is here!
Let us abandon our flocks,
let them run headlong into the sea–
our wealth like pale bread floating,
drowning in the water.
Let us run into this dead night
without coats–without warmth,
dead as frozen corpses–our hearts
dying under the fiery gaze of heaven’s eyes.
He is here! we need no terrestrial life,
no warmth for our twisted bodies.
Let us throw our bodies into joyful contortions,
let us scream his name into the black void of space.
We may freeze on these hills
or melt under a torrent of flaming alien rock,
falling dead from the heavens
in utter, terrored worship.
Let us scream His name across these hills,
running with bleeding feet unto the vast, dead cities.
Let us tell these corpses
rotting in their rotting funeral houses:
“Behold you dead men! The KING OF ALL
is birthed bloody on the hay of a bleak cavern stable!”
His holy heart beats in the throbbing asthmatic chest
of a body already dying–twisted in the body
of a freezing newborn babe, red with fear
and the first feel of frozen air.
He beats the air with fists to pierce,
screams through lips to speak God’s words
to a dead world–to you, dead people!
Wake to this terrible night!
Come out of your graves, tear off your graveclothes,
rip out your silent hearts and set them on fire
and run and scream and gibber with us
through this pitch-black midnight!
We run to pitch-black Bethlehem!
We go to prostrate ourselves before the King of all,
incarnate in a sickly, bloodied babe.