Tonight the wind gnaws with teeth of
The jackdaw shivers in caged branches of
The stars have
There is hunger in the mouth of vole and
Silver agonies of breath in the nostril of the
Ice on the rabbit’s
Tonight has no moon, no food for the
The fruit tree is bare, the rose bush a
And the ground is bitter with
But the mole sleeps and the hedgehog lies curled in a womb of
And the bean and the wheat seed hug their germs in the
And a stream moves under the
Tonight there is no
But a star opens like a trumpet over the
And tonight in a nest of ruins the blessed babe is
And the fir tree warms to a bloom of
And the child lights his lantern and stares at his tinsel
And our hearts and hearths smoulder with live
In the blood of our grief the cold earth is
In our agony the womb convulses its
And in the last cry of
The child’s first breath is born
