but I was sick with worrying.  You see?
How little faith I had?
That very night,
the angel came to Joseph in a dream.
Dear Joseph!  He would never doubt a dream!
6
The light was there again in Bethlehem
when he was born.  It was a lovely night.
I can remember how the stars came out
as we drew near the inn, and how the moon
shone on the grass that blew along the slopes
and waved like water in the evening wind.
I can remember, if I shut my eyes,
the pungent smell of oxen in the cave,
the plaintive sound the little donkey gave.
Mehetabel.  That was our donkey's name.
It must have seemed a strange and foreign place
to poor Mehetabel.  It did to me!
So very strange, that nothing was quite real,
the town, the inn, the dry and ancient cave
where cobwebs hung, bespangled with the chaff
of years, and least of all myself.  I feel
again, now, thinking back to it, the pain
that crept upon me, stifling and strong,
and growing through the hours of the night
until I was no longer anything
but pain.  Then, in its last extremity,
it changed.  I felt within me all the power
that ever was, a surging song of strength,
relief and tenderness.  And all around,
the light was shining.  Cobwebs turned to gold,
and golden chaff lay drifted on the ground.
There was no corner of the cave left dark.
The door was open to the evening air
and on the hillside, light shone everywhere,
brighter than any moon, brighter by far
than sun at noonday, or the brightest star.
And while the brilliance shone, I felt a glow
of joy, but as the light began to go,
I had a vague presentiment, as though
the happy time were past, and ever more
a nameless dread would wait outside my door.
Perverse, in one so singularly blest.
They brought the child and put him at my breast
where he lay quietly and gazed at me
with cloudy violet eyes.
What did he see,
I wonder, such a solemn little face!
Did he feel alien in such a place?
Out in the meadows, shepherds saw the light
and angels told them that the Christ was born.
They all came crowding in, at break of morn,
to see the baby, lying in the hay.
And some knelt down to worship him and pray,
and others looked, and laughed, and went away.
7
John, have I ever told you what he said,
that strange old man who came and took my child
and held him, in the temple?  That first time,
it was, when we had taken turtle doves,
and were presenting Jesus to the Lord.
He spoke as one who knew us.  At the last,
he looked at me through tears that veiled his eyes,
and said, "A sword shall pierce thy own soul too..."
Oh, he was right, John.  What he said came true!
8
A few had taken what the shepherds told
as notable.  It was a different thing
when wise men from the east came seeking him
who was to rule the Jews, to bring him gold
and frankincense and myrrh.  They were so grand,
you know, and strange and foreign-looking, too,
that all the people hung on every word
they said.  At last the king, old Herod, heard.
That night my husband had another dream,
and woke from it with sweat that  wet his brow
and eyes that stared about him wild with fear.
Nothing would do but that we all get up
and flee, that very instant, for our lives.
A year we spent in Egypt, one whole year,
so far from all our friends and kin and dear,
familiar Galilee.  I thought at first
it was perhaps a needless thing to do.
But then one day a caravan came through,
and people told us of the massacre
of all the little children under two.
Oh, John, it makes me weep, even today.
A woman never mothers only one,
but must lament for every mother's son.
So when I thought of all the babies dead
and mine alone alive, I bowed my head
to thank the Lord, as Noah's house had done
after the deluge.  But I found that I
was not like Noah, on Mount Ararat.
I could not thank God for a thing like that.
9
Those were the best years, there in Nazareth,
and so they passed the faster.  Busy years,
with children being born and growing up,
and never time for worrying or fears.
I wasted all that precious time, I think,
preoccupied with unimportant things.
Or maybe not.  For who can judge the good
of laundered linens, songs a mother sings,
a loaf of bread, a toy from scraps of wood?
And all the things I never thought to say...
I think perhaps he heard them anyway.
10
But it was hard, you know, to keep in mind
that he was different, my first-born son,
he that I nursed and he whose swaddling clothes
I changed.  He seemed the same as anyone.
As on that day when he could not be found
among the caravan.  As last resort,
we went back to Jerusalem, and there,
before the rabbis in the temple court,
we found him.  Oh, the weak relief I felt!
I had been frantic!  And I told him so,
in front of everyone. 
With some surprise he looked at us and said,
"Did not you know that I must be about my Father's work?"
As though, if I had known, I'd not be fretting.
I did know, really, but I kept forgetting.
11
When Joseph died, my eldest was a rock
to lean against, and we all leaned on him
those years he kept the shop and stayed at home.
It was a calm and peaceful interim before a storm.
My old, vague fears returned the day I saw my cousin's son, young John. 
He that I felt leap in his mother's womb
now looked no longer young, but gaunt and wan,
half starved from living in the wilderness,
and dressed in skins.  Wild.  And his eyes were wild,
baptizing men and preaching everywhere
that our Messiah was my first-born child.

12
From that time on, my son was not my son.
It was not only that he went away...
It was, oh, something else.  We could not talk.
I never could find anything to say.
There was one time, just at the first, I tried
to keep him by me, at my beck and call,
to prove it to myself and show them all,
whatever happened, that he still was mine.
It was in Cana, at a wedding feast;
they had run out of wine.
I did not see what he could do about it, but I asked.
Not for the bridegroom or the bride.  For me.
How gently then he told me how it was,
"Oh, woman, what have I to do with thee?"
Yes, then he made the water into wine
the guests all praised as being very fine.
I would not know, for as I raised the cup,
tears filled my throat.  I could not swallow mine.
13
The pomegranate dropped its orange bells,
the olive ripened and along the hills
windflowers cast their seeds and died and then
winter was over and they bloomed again.
Like windflowers, words on the winds came through,
to whip about the streets of Nazareth,
words of my son.  Words of such wondrous things
and terrible, which ones could I believe?
So, with my younger sons, I went to see,
to find out for myself what things were true.
He was at Peter's house, and all the town
were crowded in the court.  We could not pass,
and sent word through to Jesus that we'd come.
He did not pause, but stretched out either hand
above the crowd, and we could hear him say,
"These are my mother and my brethren,
who hear the word of God, and do his will."
He did not come to us.
We went away with heavy hearts.  We did not understand.
14
Spring came again, and in the wilderness
acacia blossomed gold.  The apricots
grew ripe and full, fell softly to the ground,
but every day was dark with dreariness.
I knew what was to come, or thought I knew,
and yet I did not know.  What had gone wrong?
What of the wise men and the angel's song?
The throne of David?
Passover approached.
Again I journeyed to Jerusalem,
for I was done with waiting and with yearning,
and I would go, though there be no returning.
15
As I went through the town, I heard the truth
from strangers, from the crowds that filled the streets
and surged, a moving wall, behind the cross
that showed above their heads.  I wept,  I pushed,
but other women pushed and many other
women there were weeping.  No one heard;
no one believed that I was Jesus' mother.
How long we struggled up that narrow street!
But when at last we came out on the hill
and I could see him clearly, it was worse.
His naked, bleeding body haunts me still.
My hands reached out, but could not take the thorns
from that dear head that had lain on my breast.
My arms ached for the cross he had to bear,
but could not help him, could not give him rest.
I would have dashed the hateful vinegar
onto the ground and given him good wine,
but even that I could not do for him.
He was the crowd's; he was no longer mine.
Then lightning lit his face and I could see
his eyes.  My son was looking straight at me.
Remember, John, how much his eyes could say?
When he was just a little boy, sometimes
they widened with an anxious, wondering love.
That was the way he looked at me just then,
as he had looked once, as a little boy,
so full of hurts, I thought my heart would break.
Yet in his pain, he worried for my sake.
For then he said, "Woman, behold thy son,"
and gave me over to your keeping, John.
Yes, he had seen the torn place in my soul
and tried with his last breath to make me whole.
Through tears I looked, despairing, on his face,
and knew that none could ever take his place.
16
The light was gone; it had gone out with him.
That afternoon upon the skull-shaped hill
night came too early, and there were no stars.
Never had evening been so dark and chill.
Never had Sabbath dragged so gray and still.

Then at the third day's dawning I awoke
to hear the song of spring the swallow sings,
and as we crossed the quiet, sleeping town
the kind of golden light a rainbow brings
lit up the east, and touched the cypress trees
and gilded crocus growing on the hill.
It shone upon the stone that stood apart,
and in the empty tomb shone brighter still.
I did not see the truth of it at first.
I had not ever thought of it before.

But now my heart groped haltingly ahead
toward a beckoning and light-filled door.
Then as I stared, I heard the angel's voice,
"Fear not, for he is risen, as he said."
The linen clothes lay in the sepulcher,
but he had gone.  My Jesus was not dead.
17
He was the light, and lingered here a while,
a brightness in the night, to show the way.
Without the light then would we reconcile
ourselves to death, as to the end of day.
We were the earth-bound, but the light is free.
It has no bounds nor bonds and neither earth
nor death may hold it fast.  Thus will it be,
that man will hear about the wondrous birth,
and man will see the brilliance from afar.
He'll follow, worlds and centuries apart,
the shining of a distant, gleaming star
to find the light bright-burning in his heart.
And I?  All that I've lost I treasure still.
God ever needs an empty cup to fill.

HELEN CASWELL