Merry Christmas and welcome back to the Daily Poem.

Today is Wednesday, December 25th, 2004.

And while I am not recording this on Christmas Day,

and perhaps you are not listening to this on Christmas Day,

this is the poem appointed for Christmas Day.

And so through the mysteries of time and the cosmos, we are somehow, both of us

met in the moment of Christmas Day, the eternal present of Christmas Day. So Merry Christmas

to all of you. May your feasts be warm and filled with the divine light of joy.

Today's poem is a selection from a longer work by W.H. Auden called For the Time Being, a Christmas oratorio. And this is a rather lengthy poem that Auden wrote shortly after the death of his mother.

And it is remarkable.

It moves in lyrical verse through the events leading up to the nativity or incarnation,

including the Annunciation or the Angel Gabriel's announcement to Mary,

that she would bear a child through the trip to

Bethlehem and the eventual coming of Jesus in the manger. And then the ending of Christmas,

not only for the principal historical players, but also for those of us in present time, who each year

have to take our leave of the feast. I will read a passage from that portion tomorrow.

Today's selection comes from the chorus of angels as they make their announcement to the shepherds in the hills

outside of Bethlehem. This is a trio of joyful declarations by the angels, punctuated by

a brief refrain in the voice of the shepherds. This is the chorus of angels from for the time

being. Unto you a child. This is the chorus of angels from For the Time Being.

Unto you a child, a son is given, praising, proclaiming the ingression of love.

Earth's darkness invents the blaze of heaven and frigid silence, meditates a song.

...