A Blessed Christmas

It is only right to greet the dawn of this new day with another poem, this one that is wholly mindful of the work that we are called to do and the people be in the new year.

I send with it my prayer that you may discover a blessed and peaceful season of new life in your hearts.

 

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

 

If you don’t know the kind of person I am

and I don’t know the kind of person you are

a pattern that others made may prevail in the

world

and following the wrong god home we may miss

our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break

sending with shouts the horrible errors of

childhood

storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each

elephant’s tail,

but if one wanders the circus won’t find the

park,

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something

shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should

consider—

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the

dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to

sleep;

the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

 

William E. Stafford