DRINKING AT THE DOWNSPOUT
Little Lost Lamb
Cock-Eyed Sheepdog
Nightingale Teacher
Singing Crow
Crowing Rooster
Crooning Dove
Fluttering Dragonfly
Spotted Goad
Old Hen
Young Weasel
Flop-Eared Boy
Flop-Eared Donkey
Stump Woman
Crook-Eyed Shepherd
Bullfrog
Caterpillar
Big-Nosed Shrub Girl
Young Mother-Girl
RushingAngels
Shattering Stars
*****
All unexpected critters and sort-of folks
Trailing into Bethlehem’s Back Gate
All joined so all can hear and see and feel and smell
All teaching and reaching together for this gate
All stretching towards the stall
Trailing into Bethlehem now so dry
All holding up each to each so in thrall
Trailing each a single sense of about to be glory
All holding up each to find drops of spirit fill,
All now gleaming through cracks in animal house,
As first come sheep, before come cattle, now come donkey,
Trail around a filling trough to never thirst again,
But no room for outside critters, no room for not-quite folk,
All now sliding down in weak adore of Light within,
But no spot for thirsting after righteousness,
All now pushed under old fallen roof joint,
All now falling under shattering starlight and crushing angle wings
Brushing the dews of morning down the joint spout
Draining the angel cloud weeps down into waiting throats,
Soaking the deep places inside the hearts in that corner,
Watering the life forces in each, to each, with each,
To loosen the tongues to tell the words in other far corners:
“Christ the New Born King is Come This Day
For to Love Us All, Bless Us All, Each and Every
Critter Unspected, each and every OutsideFolk Unspected.”
********************
So all the expected ones and the unexpected and incomplete ones joined as one before
The Babe with Young Girl Mother, all still with waiting and still waiting
The weary world to come and find, to come and give, to come and wait, wait, wait.
granbee 