This is the second sonnet1 in this year’s Advent series. Last week (a very busy one for me—pardon my delay in posting this poem), we lit the Bethlehem candle.
O little town of David’s hymnal youth O town where peace grew green as grass apart From power’s hungry reach, where like a dart Directed at eternity the truth Of heaven’s love first lodged Himself. Here Ruth The foreigner—refusing to depart From she who’d been abandoned, Ruth whose art Was in the binding up of wounds the tooth Of time had made—uncovered in the night The one who would unite himself to her And willingly requite her need, incur Her shame, receive the sandal in the sight Of all. “Naomi has a son!” they said, A kingly sire born in the house of bread.
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1
The reference to “house of bread” in the last line is the translation of Bethlehem (or “Beit Lechem” in Hebrew).