The Carpenter's Son
He must have grown anxious as the sun gave way
to stars and darkness and bitter cold,
blamed himself for not pushing them harder,
for his inadequacy, his poverty, the thin
rags his wife drew tighter against the chill.
The night filled with distant stars;
the cold cracked his hands gripping the reins,
and he forced the mule another mile, then another,
around them the desolate emptiness of fields,
a few stray sheaves of winter wheat.
The dream must have seemed only that, a dream,
and he must have been afraid, afraid for his wife,
the child she carried, afraid of the night, the cold,
the empty loneliness they traveled.
Perhaps he cursed, softly, under his breath,
softly, so his wife would not hear, softly,
so the stars would not hear,
and he jerked the reins harder,
hearing his wife's silent whisper of pain.
And then, the lights of the town,
the promise of shelter,
warmth, a hot meal, a soft bed.
In town--faces at the doors--
each repetition a reminder of his failures,
until finally, at the far edge of town,
he accepted the small charity of a stable,
glad at last for a few frostbitten blades
of grass, anything to answer
the fear in Mary's eyes,
the pain--
His hand caught the baby as it came,
His blade severed this life from its mother,
this baby, like any baby, dark-haired,
dark-eyed, so like its mother.
Did he smile as she nursed his first-born son;
did he whisper to himself, "This is my son"?
Then, what were his thoughts
when the shepherds came,
when the dream surrounded him?
Did he kneel with them
or stand forgotten in the shadows
as gnarled hands claimed
the child that was his?
--Bill Stifler, © 1996.
At the time I wrote this, I had been memorizing poems by Richard Wilbur. I would like to think his style influenced this poem.