A Christmas Poem

I happened upon an Ideals Christmas book of poetry at a going out of business book sale. It's filled with pictures, stories, poetry that call to mind the era of Norman Rockwell or Charles Dickens.

Amid the pages was nestled a poem that I would like to share with you. It's titled: Let the Stable Still Astonish and is written by Leslie Leyland Fields.

Let the stable still astonish:

Straw–dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.

Who would have chosen this?

Who would have said: “Yes,
Let the God of all the heavens and earth
Be born here, in this place?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
Of our hearts

And says, “Yes,

Let the God of Heaven and Earth

Be born here –

In this place.

----Leslie Leyland Fields