They came over the snow to the bread's purer snow, fumbled it in their hugehands, put their lips to it
like beasts, stared into the dark chalice
where the wine shone, felt it sharp
on their tongue, shivered as at a sin
remembered, and heard love cry
momentarily in their hearts' manger. They rose and went back to their poor holdings, naked in the bleak light of December. Their horizon contracted to the one small, stone-riddled fieldwith its tree, where the weather was nailing the appalled body that had asked to be born. |
