Cradle of the Heart
by C. J. Martin
I looked up and suddenly found myself standing in my flannel nightgown outside some ancient Middle Eastern town. It was dark. Thick clouds piled across the sky. Wind pushed and pulled them apart, unveiling the most magnificent and massive star I had ever seen. Gasping, all I could do was stare at it. Was it a comet? But no, it was stationary, and yet how could a star look so big? This orb pulsated, as if breathing light. What was it? And where was I? Why was I here?
Shock threw my gaze around, taking in the foreign surroundings. Behind me, clay houses crouched and huddled, all dark and silent. Before me were hills rolling out in an undulating series of fields, dotted with white rocks. And then some of the rocks moved. No, they weren’t rocks, they were sheep.
How did I get here? Before my mind could form a single possibility, the star was outmatched by an even brighter, all but blinding, light. It poured down through what appeared to be a hole in the vault of the sky. This was not moonlight!
As my eyes adjusted I began to make out forms in the light. Impossible. But there they were, real as life, wearing shimmering white robes: people. There was a host of people in the sky! And then they started singing, singing “Glory to God in the Highest” with such magnitude that their voices echoed off every tile on every roof and resonated in my bones. I trembled, whether from the force of so many voices or my reaction to them, I didn’t know.
I stood with mouth open, heart dancing. Soon these dirt streets would be flooded with citizens bursting out of their dwellings to see this air-born choir. I turned, ready to beacon the crowds toward me, but the streets remained empty. Someone else had to see this!
Unable to contain myself, I ran down the slope, looking for a shepherd–somebody! When I found myself at the bottom, standing in the mouth of a cave, I realized that the first hill was in fact hollow.
More shocking were the people inside. Though they didn’t wear radiating robes, they were stranger still. I must have gasped as several men turned around, and upon seeing me appeared to be equally as shocked. They just stood there, agape, staring back, wearing silken robes and jeweled turbans. Just beyond them huddled some Arabic or Israeli men in course, bland tunics.
Startled, I jumped back when a donkey brayed, and looking in its direction I saw it tied up to a post, and beside it were geese penned in against the stony wall and a cow munching straw. Shadows jerked and flickered from a small light. They all stared back at me as I stood stock-still, smelling wet animal hair, perfume, hay and smoke from a burning clay lamp.
Rain started falling over the cave opening, hitting my back, and it was then I heard a woman crying. It was the sobs of a mother. It was a heart-wrenching sound.
“Why is someone crying?” I asked. They all continued to stare at me; the Arabs with their sparkling foreheads and black mysterious eyes; the shepherds with their shaggy beards and creased faces. Looking down, I wondered how I could explain my flannel night gown, but oddly they didn’t seem to even notice my attire. Instead, their eyes were forlorn and fixed on my eyes, as if they sought some urgent answer from me.
“Was it only a myth?” trembled the lips of an Arab.
“Could the angels have lied?” a man with a staff choked.
Even the sheep baaaa-ed at me as if asking a similar question.
Their sandals stepped back and I saw another man crouched on his knees, his strong large hands gripping a trembling woman’s shoulders as she sat leaning against him. Her dark hair was slivered with straw as the tresses fell over her shoulders. She wept beside the feeding trough, a manger, carved out of the rock wall.
There in the straw-filled manger was an empty linen cloth with the depression of a tiny human form where her infant had lain. She raised her swollen eyes and trembled,
“My baby! Where is my baby?”
All the strangers looked at me. Rain poured outside as memories poured in my mind. My tears stung as they trickled down over flushing cheeks. This woman’s lips quivered again,
“Where is my child?”
My body shook: I knew the answer. “I—I—los—I lost him.” Blood seemed to turn to shame as it flooded my being. “I lost him.” And I knew exactly where. “I lost him in the holiday crowds. I lost him while wrapping boxes. I lost him in the parties and stress of doing everything right.” My eyes skirted from their probing, disbelieving eyes.
“I held him close—at first.” I weakly tried to justify.
Just like this Israeli town, throughout my hurried, self-indulgent days, I too “slept” while angels sang. I looked into the pleading pain-filled eyes of the infant’s mother and had to confess, “I don’t know what happened. I had him in my arms. He was amazing and beautiful. And then something happened. As the years past I –I lost him. I lost your baby!”
I turned and fled out into the rain, hitting my hair and gown like pounding tears, and I ran up the hill and fell into the soggy grass.
I bolted up. The cave and its flickering light were gone. It was still dark but I could see that the grass had changed to floral sheets. Now the glowing red numbers of a digital clock was all that glared at me. Clock? Sheets? Of course, it was just a dream. I sighed the sigh of my life. I wasn’t wet with rain, I was wet with my own sweat.
But even as I realized that the Israeli mother was only a dream, another horror seized me. My baby! Where was my child?
I ran down the hallway into his room and grabbed my surging heart with relief. There, tucked under his blanket was my gently sleeping child. I adoringly caressed his soft head and felt his tiny back rise and fall with each slumbering little breath, yet I was still not at peace. I had lost a child; a precious newborn boy.
I forced myself down the dark hallway and into the living room where I stared at the Christmas lights blinking on the pine tree. The presents were piled in red and green and gold as if burying a truth underneath.
What was I to do? Throwing all this tradition out in the snow wouldn’t bring the baby back. Was I to take a plane to Israel and look for an empty cave? As if an invisible hand gripped pushed me, I stumbled to the coat closet. Reflexively, I slid my bare feet into snow boots, d my arms into coat sleeves. There in the back of the closet were two coats I was putting in the trash in the morning. They were perfectly good, merely unwanted, and I reasoned I didn’t have time to take them to the thrift store. The trash can was their fate.
I seized them and my purse and found myself driving down dark city streets. There it was. I pulled over to the curb and shut off the engine. Impulsively, I ran across the sidewalk and through the old wooden door with the coats. And then, not two steps inside, I stopped. I was standing in a room full of cots.
The streetlight glowed through the cracked window and revealed a room full of homeless people sleeping here on Christmas Eve. For them there were no presents under a tree. No family feast waiting, no sparkling plate of sugar cookies at their door.
Then I spied them on the floor: a sleeping mother and child lying in a shadow. I crept over to them, like a shadow myself, and laid the coat over the mother who had neither cot nor blanket. I knelt down and laid the other coat on the child, shivering on the cold floor. I lifted her slowly into my arms. More than my coat, I gave my warmth. She nestled her face into the crook of my arm. I leaned my head against the cinder block wall and my sore eyes gratefully closed.
Say it was only another dream, but I’m sure I did smell straw and animal hair again. I walked into the stable cave in my plaid gown and snow boots. All eyes of the visitors flew open as I held the Christ child in my arms, his body warm against mine.
The woman leapt to her dirt covered feet, tears of relief and elation springing from her swollen eyes. Her husband stood, lip trembling. The Arabs dropped to their kingly knees. The shepherds’ eyes filled with understanding of the glorious song from the angelic lips and they, likewise, lowered to a knee for this babe was more wonderful than all the hosts of angels.
I looked down into this baby’s face. His eyes looked up into mine. His tiny fingers wrapped around my finger. His tiny lips, his dark eyes, his thin black hair, were precious beyond description. I held my infant Savior in my arms. He closed his eyes to sleep as I gently laid him in Mary’s arms but still and forever I cradle him in my heart.
Filed under: Poetry on March 30th, 2010 | 1 Comment »
