After Midnight Mass

Behold the night sky this Christmas morning.

Gaze upon the heavens and the silent night
of galaxies, stars, and planets beyond,
embedded in the dark of the cosmos.

Behold the gargantuan gods of old,
those mummified constellations of myth,
frozen so brightly in play, love, and war.

Pause and consider the vast ambit of
physics, biology, philosophy,
mathematics, and all human knowledge.

The only sounds are the stampeding ghosts
of raw winter wind, the mournful rocking
and muted wooden murmuring of trees.
Every bleak, naked limb mirrors myself;
every shaking branch mocks my aloneness.

I am an atom, a mere iota,
an infinitesimal of space-time,
journeying through the trough of an abyss.

Yet, I reject the void. It is not my end.
It was like this, on the road, for Joseph,
the shepherds, and magi of Zoroastor.

Before my birth, before I was nothing,
Someone took pity on my nothingness.

But who am I, and what is my purpose?
Never-the-less, amid my confusion
I have hope, for I am accompanied
on my journey, by the Word within me.