For Mary Ellen Kilsby

Before the morning star, I bore the Word from the womb.

Before creation, Wisdom danced with the light of God.
At creation, she sang the world into being.
After creation, she spoke throughout the universe.

I bore you from the womb before the morning star.

Our Mother in heaven shed one blue tear
of compassion when she sent her child
into the world, and that tear blazed brightly
in the sky and led the Magi to Wisdom’s word.

I bore you from the womb before the morning star.

Eternally, on a winter’s night in a dismal stable–
Word of God giving birth to the world,
being born into it–
where even the ordinary,
illumined with her golden presence,
is changed forever.

I bore you from the womb before the morning star.

This, the heart of Wisdom:
transformation of the everyday–
the living God in our midst.
This, what the wise men seek.
This, what the star of Bethlehem leads us to.
Not the celestial chorus of angels
but the warming rebirth of one
human heart after another.

I bore you from the womb before the morning star.

God leaps from swirling nebulae
into the cold stable of our nature—
this place of dirt and tools, of what no longer works—
to be born in us, precisely, where we are most
broken,
where we least want to entertain a guest of such grandeur,
choosing to meet us there
amid straw and dung,
changing us forever.

I bore you from the womb before the morning star.

** Poem may be used with attribution and has been set to music by Stan DeWitt. 

Tina Datsko de Sánchez serves as Poet in Residence at the First Congregational Church of Long Beach.  She is the author of the bilingual poetry book The Delirium of Simón Bolívar.