"Remembering Eliot's Magi" by A L Fox

I wrote this for TS Eliot. It is a 8,6, syllabic structure poem

"Remembering Eliot's Magi" by A L Fox  January 7th 2013


A hard time they had of it sure.

A cold coming and more.

Greeted by Herod badly crowned

With fear and greed and plot.

Through sand and swamp and rocky ground;

Hunger, thirst, chill and hot;

Spear, sword, fist, steel, snarling faces;

Rich man, beggar man, thief;

Hardest people, hardest places -

Cold coming filled with grief.



The house was lit with heaven's light

Warm welcome and delight -

Fireside hearth, talk, food and joy.

They knelt and offered gifts

To teenage mum and toddling boy.

Then home and slept in shifts;

Kept watch beside, behind, ahead

Lest murder come to slay.

They wanted hope but only dread

Their shadow on the way.



Years later when the boy was grown

Could they their fears atone?

Retrace the way, that hard, hard path?

Could they, old, walk that track,

To find the grace that killed the wrath?

To see the heavens crack,

The Voice, the dove, the Spirit flies;

The waters at his feet,

The fire at his head and eyes

Makes all the pain so sweet.