image from theragamuffinsaint.com
Poem written for and submitted to "1428 Any Poem" poetry contest, Brian Strand, sponsor, November 30, 2025
The angels did not sing. Not at first. Their silence split the sky like frost on stone, a pause between the star’s slow burst and the breath that would become the song. Noel, they’d say, but first—the dark, the shepherd’s fire gnawing at the night, the lamb’s pulse quick beneath his palm, the weight of wool, the itch of straw, the way a man might kneel without knowing why. Then~ the air grown thick with wings, the cry like wine poured from a height, the name that broke the nameless dark: Noel, Noel, the root, the spark, the falling, catching, light. Now we hum it, clean and bright, but the first Noel was half a scream~ the sound a world makes when it tears and finds the seam is lined with gold.
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