Special Starlight
The Creator of night and of birth
was the Maker of the stars.
Shall we look up now at stars in Winter
And call them always sweeter friends
Because this story of a Mother and a Child
Never is told with the stars left out?
Is it a Holy Night now when a child issues
Out of the dark and the unknown
Into the starlight?
Down a Winter evening sky
when a woman hovers
between two great doorways
between entry and exit,
between pain to be laughed at
joy to be wept over —
do the silver-white lines
then come from holy stars?
shall the Newcomer, the Newborn,
between soft flannels,
swaddling cloths called Holy?
Shall all wanderers over the earth, all homeless ones,
All against whom doors are shut and words spoken —
Shall these find the earth less strange tonight?
Shall they hear news, a whisper on the night wind?
”A child is born.” “The meek shall inherit the earth.”
“And they crucified Him . . . they spat upon Him.
And He rose from the dead.”
Shall a quiet dome of stars high over
Make signs and a friendly language
Among all the nations?
Shall they yet gather with no clenched fists at all,
And look into each other’s faces and see eye to eye,
And find ever new testaments of man as a sojourner
And a toiler and a brother of fresh understandings?
Shall there be now always
believers and more believers
of sunset and moonrise,
of moonset and dawn,
of wheeling numbers of stars,
and wheels within wheels?
Shall plain habitations off the well-known roads
Count now for a little more than they used to?
Shall plains ways and people held close to earth
be reckoned among things to be written about?
Shall tumult, grandeur, fanfare, panoply, prepared loud noises
Stand equal to a quiet heart, thoughts, vast dreams
Of men conquering the earth by conquering themselves?
Is there a time for ancient genius of man
To be set for comparison with the latest generations?
Is there a time for stripping to simple, childish questions?
On a holy night we may say:
The Creator of night and of birth
was the Maker of the stars.
– Carl Sandburg