The Carpenter’s Son<\/p>\n
He must have grown anxious as the sun gave way
\nto stars and darkness and bitter cold,
\nblamed himself for not pushing them harder,
\nfor his inadequacy, his poverty, the thin
\nrags his wife drew tighter against the chill.
\nThe night filled with distant stars;
\nthe cold cracked his hands gripping the reins,
\nand he forced the mule another mile, then another,
\naround them the desolate emptiness of fields,
\na few stray sheaves of winter wheat. <\/p>\n
The dream must have seemed only that, a dream,
\nand he must have been afraid, afraid for his wife,
\nthe child she carried, afraid of the night, the cold,
\nthe empty loneliness they traveled.
\nPerhaps he cursed, softly, under his breath,
\nsoftly, so his wife would not hear, softly,
\nso the stars would not hear,
\nand he jerked the reins harder,
\nhearing his wife’s silent whisper of pain.
\nAnd then, the lights of the town,
\nthe promise of shelter,
\nwarmth, a hot meal, a soft bed.<\/p>\n
In town–faces at the doors–
\neach repetition a reminder of his failures,
\nuntil finally, at the far edge of town,
\nhe accepted the small charity of a stable,
\nglad at last for a few frostbitten blades
\nof grass, anything to answer
\nthe fear in Mary’s eyes,
\nthe pain–<\/p>\n
His hand caught the baby as it came,
\nHis blade severed this life from its mother,
\nthis baby, like any baby, dark-haired,
\ndark-eyed, so like its mother.
\nDid he smile as she nursed his first-born son;
\ndid he whisper to himself, “This is my son”?<\/p>\n
Then, what were his thoughts
\nwhen the shepherds came,
\nwhen the dream surrounded him?
\nDid he kneel with them
\nor stand forgotten in the shadows
\nas gnarled hands claimed
\nthe child that was his?<\/p>\n
–Bill Stifler<\/p>\n
© 1996, Bill Stifler. At the time I wrote this, I had been memorizing poems by Richard Wilbur. I would like to think his style influenced this poem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Carpenter’s Son He must have grown anxious as the sun gave way to stars and darkness and bitter cold, blamed himself for not pushing them harder, for his inadequacy, his poverty, the thin rags his wife drew tighter against the chill. The night filled with distant stars; the cold cracked his hands gripping the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tPlD-5a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325,"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}