Nativity

If you squint slightly you will be able to see,
deep in the donkey’s slitted eye, the whole scene
reflected. Used to being pushed off to the side,
he stands stolid and docile beside an overturned
bucket and a bale of hay hurriedly strewn about
without much thought, or afterthought. The light
is dim except for some unaccountable glimmer
that seems to come from above, circling the small
central scene. It appears as a sty-like startle in
his watery eye, illuminating the new-born child
asleep beside his watchful mother. The dumb-
founded father is bookended in at the other end
of the small manger. Everything seems stopped
in the midst of some mysteriously hazy motion,
containing three dots, three tiny men, moving
like specks of dust in an expanse of endless sand.
 

Winter Solstice

Maes Howe—Orkney

We had to bow, bend,
to make our way in
through the long low
passage, then stand,
as they’d stood, in a
small circle at the end
of the long shaft that
lets the light slash,
scud, stop in a splash
on a single central stone.
We stand and stare
at the light, the way
they did, light which
could suddenly dis-
appear into the stone,
stone that could col-
lapse, and lock us in.