Astonishing

I don't know when she wrote it -- I've found references to it as early as 2004 -- but Leslie Leyland Fields has written this wonderful piece of poetry that I heard for the first time in a choir performance this year. The words are powerful. Thought I'd share.

Let the Stable Still Astonish!

Let the stable still astonish:
Straw-dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child, rag-wrapped laid to cry
In a trough.
Who would have chosen this?
Who would have said:
"Yes, Let the God of Heaven and Earth be born in this place"?

Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms of our hearts
And says,
"Yes, let the God of Heaven and Earth be born in THIS place."

- Leslie Leyland Fields

Yes, astonishing.