Before they set out, met
to start their long hard journey from that East,
they knew their tasks, their gifts
to those whose very language, metaphor:
three gifts to speak of soul’s eternal life
about to be refreshed in human life:
gold for the soul’s first task,
resplendent in reflection of All that’s divine;
frankincense, for the soul’s gift to survey
All above and all below as One;
myrrh, that preserves the state and memory
of the passing body, servant of the soul;
these are on their way to Him; horsehooves
now ringing sharp on flint; now sighing into sand;
stars in a velvet winter night
telling of three dominions and cosmographies;
a fortnight’s journey yet to mark the lifetime,
waytime, truthtime, held
in tomorrow’s birth in scent of hay;
divine moment; that in human life must yet hold
an empty cave as tomb; a pile of clothes still warm;
dawnlight on the garden, reflected as from gold;
lingering, the scent of myrrh and frankincense.
Michael Shepherd
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/and-we-three-kings/
