We don`t know how many wise men came.
Three, six, twelve?
Twelve would make sense,
The same number as Christ`s apostles,
And this the Assyrian Church has unequivocally claimed,
And yet the shrine in Cologne contains only three corpses.
But from what secret palaces, what far flung caravansaries
Did these wise men commence with ponies and camels
To trudge the bleak mountain tops, the vast trackless deserts,
To reach the bad lands of Herod the king?
The records are incomplete, the details too hazy
With much emphasis on strange moving stars,
King Herod`s paranoia,
Contemptuous Romans,
The efficacy of believing in the wildest of dreams.
And who were these sages, these cold weary travellers?
Zoroastrians from Persia? Buddhists from Sri Lanka?
Gypsies from Rajasthan?
But a Messiah was deemed far greater
Than any Bodhisattva
And no foreign faiths were welcomed in Judea.
So, from whence did they come? These Stoics? These Shamans?
These Daoists? These Brahmins? These strange righteous Gentiles
To kneel in the dung spattered straw of a stable
And worship the miracle of a new born child?
Perhaps who they were does not really matter,
Only that they followed a spectacular nova
Without really knowing where it would lead them
Or what they would find at the end of the journey. -
The palace of a mighty king? - Surely not a stable?
But when they saw the infant in the arms of Mary,
Filthy with placenta, pressed tight to her shoulder,
It was the love emanating from this helpless nursling
And lighting up the eyes of his teenage mother
That made them kneel, awe struck, humbled, terrified,
And present their gifts as though to the mighty Caesar.
We have few details of their homeward journey,
Only that they kept clear of Masada,
And travelled by an undisclosed new route.
Yet surely all we need to know was written down by Matthew,
Indeed, their trust in hope is all that really matters,
That they witnessed something vital, something extraordinary,
The transfiguration of the commonplace by a mother`s love.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
23rd. - 25th. - 26th. January 2019.
6th. January 2020. - January 6th. 2021.
Than any Bodhisattva
And no foreign faiths were welcomed in Judea.
So, from whence did they come? These Stoics? These Shamans?
These Daoists? These Brahmins? These strange righteous Gentiles
To kneel in the dung spattered straw of a stable
And worship the miracle of a new born child?
Perhaps who they were does not really matter,
Only that they followed a spectacular nova
Without really knowing where it would lead them
Or what they would find at the end of the journey. -
The palace of a mighty king? - Surely not a stable?
But when they saw the infant in the arms of Mary,
Filthy with placenta, pressed tight to her shoulder,
It was the love emanating from this helpless nursling
And lighting up the eyes of his teenage mother
That made them kneel, awe struck, humbled, terrified,
And present their gifts as though to the mighty Caesar.
We have few details of their homeward journey,
Only that they kept clear of Masada,
And travelled by an undisclosed new route.
Yet surely all we need to know was written down by Matthew,
Indeed, their trust in hope is all that really matters,
That they witnessed something vital, something extraordinary,
The transfiguration of the commonplace by a mother`s love.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
23rd. - 25th. - 26th. January 2019.
6th. January 2020. - January 6th. 2021.
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