Oh Shepherd deep in sleep
like the publican who
went home from the Temple
justified by wanton prayer.

What dreams are growing
into 30 or 60 or 100 fold?
What hopes spring forth
like a vine whose
branches bear fruit
as luxurious as squeezed wine
at a joyous marriage feast?

What is it that disturbs
you like the iching hand
of a miserly tax collector?

Is it a light as bright
as a new born sun
spinning planets into orbits
beyond galactic space?

And voices singing as wildly
as people shouting hosannas
as they spread palms
as carefreely as straw
in a forlorn manger?

What is it you are hearing
oh Shepherd
as soft as a harp's strings,
as thunderous as a drum beat?

What words are they singing,
"Peace on earth"?
Amid your sleepy yawns
you snap to attention
like a Centurion before the Emperor,

to directions given to a stable
as nondescript as a beggar
blindly pleading on a roadside,

and with a startled jump start
you plunge ahead like
a lost sheep seeking
shoulders of recovery,

until you stumble, Shepherd
of pleasant, green hillside,
into a stable where
tabernacled is the host,
an infant of the eternal now,
residing here in elastic time,

a moment never to be forgotten
forever suspended like
that midnight star and
the angelic song that lead
us all over our own hills
into a place of beginning.