Shepherd

Someone must have stayed
Out in Bethlehem’s fields
While those bedazzled shepherds
High-tailed it into town
To find a manger.
Someone must have chosen
To stay on duty,
Clambering over windswept ledges
To find a bleating lamb,
Or bending under a thicket
To be midwife at a creature’s birth.
Theirs was a sad fate,
To be shepherds on the holiest night
But to have nothing to tell
Lapfuls of grandchildren
Who would ask about the shimmering glory
When the starry sky was filled
With wild wings and song,
Who would want to know what
The Savior of the world looked like,
Splayed out there on the hay.
Still, they had kept another kind of faith.
They had done their duty,
And duty, too, is a thing
That holds the world together,
Another name for love itself.
Of course, the restless sheep
Would not be grateful,
Would not care about the aching bodies,
The bone-weariness,
Of those who kept watch,
Who kept the terrors of the dark at bay.
But perhaps there was One
Who took notice, remembered,
Cherished those forgotten ones,
One who later taught a Son
What it meant to be a
Shepherd.