QT: Centerpoint

As I mentioned in my post of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, one of my favorite renditions is from Jeff Johnson's Centerpoint CD. This Christmas collection includes some old carols and poems. The poems are by Keith Patman from a collection entitled Centerpoint. I am reproducing that poem here.

Centerpoint

It is a still scene -
Animal, human, angel awe
Surrounds the newborn, radiant child
- A centerpoint in time, whose ways and places wrap
In layers about the crib of straw,
Enveloping Bethlehem as a many-folded map.

It is a star's still centerpoint -
God's scissors cut it out in paper layers
- Rays piercing Babylon, Sodom, pyramids,
Dark rain and floodswell, Eden's flaming gate . . .
Rays shot through Rome and Dachau, martyrs' prayers,
Wake of galleons, hoofbeats, moonwalk, 1998 . . .

God's hands, at either end of time,
Unfold the map, reveal the geometric star
And its still centerpoint: Himself, incarnate.

Tags: Christmas, Gospel, Poetry, Quotes