Even So

It was December,
and the sky
was shaggy and chill.
I wandered alone
across a stubbled field,
my body
bitter with cold,
the ragged trail
of my footprints
crisp as a longing
on the new snow.
In the clogged branches
somewhere above me,
a woodthrush-
left behind for some reason
I couldn't guess
after its fellows were gone-
decorated the air
with one liquid note.
And I knew
that the season
was not about magi or angels,
but the joy that abides
in the tiumphant wail of birth:
we hurt, and are not healed;
even so, we sing.

© Robert Lavett Smith