With Christmas just around the corner, I have carols on my mind. In my latest book, Voiceless Choirs: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, I poetically interact with sacred texts, and some of those are traditional hymns. Knowing my love of Christmas music, I knew some of those hymns would be Christmas carols, and I did base two poems on carols.
While not the most well known Christmas song, “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” is a stirring and sober presentation of Christ’s birth as King of kings. The hymn attempts to hold these things in tension—the utter humility of Jesus becoming human though as God He is owed knee-bending, head-bowing reverence. This hymn does leave me feeling awe-struck, and I attempt to reflect this in my poem.
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
Night vanishes as a meteorite
breaks its body on the earth,
hemorrhaging fire and nuclear light.
Brush, soil, and basalt
tidal-wave in all directions
chased by a crazed stampede
of echos and aftershocks.
Myriads of fir trees fall,
spreading their limbs in the dust,
which billows into the air.
Hours later,
there is no rustling or scurrying,
no howl, hoot, or beat of wings,
just
the shallow breathing of the breeze
and the bloodshot moon’s
mute gaze.
A Wandering Minstrel 