Spiritual Sunday
Journey for Jesus’s Dan Clendenin alerted me to this epiphany poem by Scottish poet George Mackay Brown. In simple parable-like language, Brown describes the magi encountering frustrating obstacles. Experiencing God’s apparent silence (“salt, snow, skulls”), they meet under a dry star.
Then the star begins to sing.
Epiphany Poem
The red king
Came to a great water. He said,
Here the journey ends.
No keel or skipper on this shore.
The yellow king
Halted under a hill. He said,
Turn the camels round.
Beyond, ice summits only.
The black king
Knocked on a city gate. He said,
All roads stop here.
These are gravestones, no inn.
The three kings
Met under a dry star.
There, at midnight,
The star began its singing.
The three kings
Suffered salt, snow, skulls.
They suffered the silence
Before the first word.
