Christmas Eve

A poem.
Illustration by Livia Falcaru

Save for the sun, the nearest star
is more than twenty-five million
million miles away.

What has a single star
shining in Bethlehem
to do with us?

If nothing else, it is this:
Tonight the coiled snake
sleeps. Tonight

a small globe
is pierced by the Light
and the center holds.

Time draws down
to Earth and God
presses his claim on us

to fulfill
the prophecy of Love
once again.

This appears in the December 2019 issue of Sojourners