This Winter's Discontent

By Mark Harris

This winter's discontent

              descends,

this year's silent snow

              gives no pleasure,

this year's winter storm

              no passion,

Clever too much by far

the butcher faintly sighs

as his cleaver cuts through

              and down to the bone,

and divides the frozen lamb

              hind and fore,

left and right,

              in quarters.

Winter is the butcher's

              time for slaughter:

the flesh held until discontent

              gives way to warmth,

to feast,

              or to disease.

If Christ had deigned to die

on midwinter's anvil,

              that short morning,

it would have taken more

to make him ready for a borrowed tomb

then lowering him into his mother's arms

              for one last photo op,

And then a quick exit, stage left,

Into folds of clean linen.

A midwinter crucifixion

would have been a butcher's dream.

As it is, if our hearts

              have the story right,

Every winter allows for warmth

              in small strange places,

And there the Child is born,

              whose coming ignites a fire

that takes the chill off every

              deadly day

and every discontent.

So I am told, and I tell you:

Every warm manger

Yields a cold grave,

And every death

yields to fire.

No discontent

has life forever,

And the butcher

does not name the meat,

nor hold to incarnation.

That is for midwinter's Mother,

              and the Child,

and perhaps for you and me.

St. Thomas Day, 2004

The Rev. Canon Mark Harris is author of The Challenge of Change: The Anglican Communion in the Post Modern Era , and a member of the Episcopal Church Publishing Company's ( The Witness magazine) board of directors. He lives in Lewes, Del., and may be reached by email at poetmark@worldnet.att.net .