Caroling on Christmas Eve We walk the streets where slush and ice assault our feet, to serenade this beautiful busted neighborhood. We are but bagmen and women bearing birth and stars and breath. Many homes are dark, some people peek out but don’t open. An elderly woman says, “thank you so much”, and a family of eight steps onto their porch to sing along. As we turn back to the church, dozens, then hundreds of crows begin to gather in the bare tree tops. Their black and raucous bodies against the milk gray sky spook us for a second, but then we begin to hear their song: a summons to all tribes and tongues, a welcome to the worst and the best behaved alike. We see no hierarchy, no rule but their common life lived through wings and their love of bark and branch. We stop for a moment on the corner to raise our eyes to the bustling sky and to feel their hymn pull something deeper from our flesh. I don’t know how long we will stand here. Sometimes God serenades with beasts. Sometimes God is serenaded with cold feet keeping silence.
Patrick Cabello Hansel is the author of the poetry collections The Devouring Land (Main Street Rag Publishing) and Quitting Time (Atmosphere Press). He has published work in over 80 journals, and won awards from the Loft Literary Center and MN State Arts Board. You can find him at www.artecabellohansel.com
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