Bethlehem
The stars
were shining in the night
with cold
and everlasting light
and the sky was calm
and all was clear
in pasture-lands.
Then song
was pouring all around
with pure
and sweet angelic sound
and a splendor burst
and all was joy
in heaven's realm.
Fear not!
the holy angels said.
Tonight
is not a night for dread
for the world is new,
the King is born,
in Bethlehem.
Rejoice!
for heaven's holy peace
will rain
on earth and never cease,
so that souls are saved
and brought to God
throughout the world.
Then go!
and see the child's face
for God
made flesh His holy grace,
for you He has loved,
for He is Love,
and hope abounds.
Catullus 70
My girl claims she'd rather be joined with none
but me, not even if Jupiter himself pursued her.
So she claims! But what a girl says to a lustful lover
tneds to be inscribed on gusts and rapids.
Catullus 5
Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,
and all of the lectures of old men
let us value at nothing more than a pence.
Suns may westfully set and return again;
for our part, when the brief western light has set,
a night ever undying then must we sleep.
A thousand kisses give me, then a hundred,
then a thousand more, then a second hundred,
and then a thousand more, and then a hundred;
then when we have done many thousands,
we'll scatter the tally to oblivion
and so avoid the envy of the wicked
lest they learn that we are so rich with kisses.
Turbulence
Crammed into a hurtling tube
kited on the wind,
the scent of human all around,
elbow in the ribs,
we descend;
we shake in ebullition,
in rapids of the air,
belted in,
shaken with shudders,
the wind in dancing thunder,
until with sudden swoop
we touch the ground.
