WordsOut poems by Godfrey Rust  | sequence The sailing of the ark ← 1 of 45 → | home    

1

Andrew, another year has stripped
the leaves, like misconceptions, from the trees;

the last page of the kitchen calendar
prepares to drop, announcing the advent 

of that season when, according to good scholarship,
Jesus couldn't have been born. The resurrection 

waits on the other side of winter, and in
this month that asks for no apologies 

the winds of daily living have laid bare
the root and branches of our faith—what 

is it that remains when it has shed
all that's deciduous, its stark wooden 

outline raised against the backdrop of this grey,
late-century, turbulent post-Christian sky?  

that season when...Jesus couldn't have been born   It is unlikely that Jesus was born in the winter. Luke and Matthew's accounts give no direct clue, other that the grazing of sheep outdoors. It has been argued that this was not unlikely in a mild Palestinian winter.