Beneath the glossy images

on Christmas cards:

those well-dressed, clean-pressed

gentlemen of fortune,

sitting high as distant stars. . .

Beyond the tiny kings

in hemmed-up robes,

bedecked with plastic

multicolored crowns

and bearing empty cardboard gifts . . .

is my epiphany.

These head-bent scholars,

charting out the skies

with faith of children

following that cosmic question.

To chafe and ache,

and finally arrive,

road-weary, strained,

exhausted, but

exuberant to see at last,

that tiny, bundled hope

and give their portents there.

I ride along today,

disheveled, burned,

surrounded by the

smell of camels,

the grit of sand

in my teeth.

Hallelujah!

Hallelujah.

I will empty out

these pockets full of

ill intent.

Departing

to my own country

by another way.