Christmas Poetry: Without Us

You can do this without us.

Move the earth through its orbit,
the courses of the stars you keep on track.
The galaxies whose music you orchestrate,
sing from millennium to millennium.

That you can do this without us
we so know.
Which is why we are amazed still
that you don’t.

Have not left us alone
to navigate through the courses of our lives,
to hold on to this spinning earth which,
but for your gravity we could not survive.

You can do this without us
we understand,
which is why we stand in awe still
that you’ve chosen otherwise.

That instead you have not only not left,
but you’ve come as close as we each allow.
In Immanuel, God with us,
our unwrapping forever gift.

Oh, you can so do this without us.

Move the earth through its orbit
the courses of the stars on track.
The galaxies, whose music you orchestrate,
singing from millennium to millennium.

That you would not just visit,
this one planet out of trillions,
but would form us each in your own image,
and then give to us your son.

Yes, what wonder is this,
that the smallest treasure laid in a haystack
is the maker and sustainer of all this,
and made his way to stay with us.

What love, that keeps us,
while still in awareness of our solitariness,
in remembrance of a connection
with the One who keeps everything.

You can so do this without us
and that is why we love you the more,
that you have not,
but rather made a path direct to your heart.

Though the universes circle us all.

Ana Lisa de Jong
December 2018