Christ Child,

your mother meek, your mother mild

was in her last trimester

when disaster rained.

The typhoon came

And flattened Bethlehem.

It swept away your future friends.

Now there’s space but no room,

no inn—only common tombs

for all the bodies expecting you.

The magi of the East

are refugees,

the wise ones who got out

before the lately drought

paves all the precious fields

with hardpan like a lot

for sleeping cars and trucks.

Fallen had the yields

so low

they simply had to go.

They bear the bitter myrrh.

Strange this star—a portent

of climatic discontent

pointing to a newborn King

who won’t have much of anything

besides carbon

in his Kingdom.

He cries with infant eyes

for Wisdom.

The cattle are lowing,

the shepherds are going

crazy

with the company

of angelic prophecy

warning what will be,

but never why.

Christ Child,

the heavens wild

above you are deeply hurt,

so too the creeping desert

and the rising seas.

We fall on our knees

Before your tiny Kingship,

in equal fear and worship.