It is quiet now, the caravans still, the road empty.
Travelers, weary with walking, sleep in their beds.
The innkeeper’s wife steps through the courtyard door,
stands for a moment in the winter air and rubs her
hands against the chill. She smoothes the folds of her robe
and looks up at the strange new star. It frightens her,

the way its light fills the twisted cypress and whitens
the road from Galilee. It dims the lamps, scours the grit-
laden wind as if night and noon have met in a gilded
witness above Judea’s hills. She thinks of the couple,
how tired they seemed. There was no room left but
the stable. Their child will come soon, she knows

the signs. In her own bed, the light keeps her awake.
Baking bread, sweeping floors, childbirth – these are
things she understands. But that star, that star!
Her husband moves beside her, mutters into his
dream. A newborn’s cry rises from broken straw –
off in the fields a shepherd calls to his lambs.

© by Adele Kenny.
Used with the author’s permission.