Winter Journey End

WINTER JOURNEY’S END Their calculations must have been at fault Their instruments in need to calibrate That wandering star’s location in the vault Had seemed a compass true, inviolate The auguries had all concurred to say Event of moment in the cosmic scheme To change the world forever come what may Would come to pass; they’d seen it all in dream Yet here they found themselves upon that night Within a byre with beasts and men unblest To witness scene both rude and recondite The focus and the end point of their quest: Young mother - fate to suffer, heart to bleed Child God incarnate, laid in cattle feed