Here’s a villanelle I wrote a few years ago to celebrate the joy and the promise of Christmas. It appears as a spoken-word poem with original music by Phil Cooper on Nathanael’s Creed’s new Christmas CD, “Home Again with You.”
Merry Christmas…
A light in darkness fights off the cold
thrust into the world yet of its own making.
The new life is fragile but the message is bold.
A gentle king, as the prophets foretold,
stirs in the straw and yawns in his waking.
A light in darkness fights off the cold.
A star from the East beckons prophecies old,
the expanse between heaven and Earth is breaking.
The new life is fragile but the message is bold.
In this child a mystery will unfold,
for wise men there is no mistaking.
A light in darkness fights off the cold.
The angels proclaim what shepherds behold,
for this night the whole world is aching.
The new life is fragile but the message is bold.
A gift from on high more precious than gold,
a life that brings life for the taking.
A light in darkness fights off the cold,
the new life is fragile but the message is bold.