A Christmas Carol

This is the last work I wrote for a church choir--a local all-male group. Though the conductor was enthusiastic, too many of the members had problems with a Christmas carol that included references to homeless children, prostitutes, abused run-aways, those dying in alley-ways, and lost rich men and so it was never performed. Too bad because I thought it had a lot more to do with the Christmas message than fat elves dressed in red, dancing snowmen, and a celebration of excessive-consumption.

Children Sleeping Under Bridges

A Christmas Carol by Ronald J Brown

 

 Children sleeping under bridges

dark December rain

Woman begging at the curbside

coughing deep in pain.

Hopeless, fearing, desperate, daring

headlights shining through the darkness:

They hear a baby cry.

Baby in the chaffing straw

crying just for them;

Wrapped in rags, he knows their pain

crying just for them.

 

Young girl standing under streetlight

waiting for a ride.

Suffocating in a fever,

never had much pride.

Bruised, abandoned, no one caring;

she cries her father's name:

And hears a baby cry.

Baby in the darkest night

crying just for her;

Baby takes her pain and calls her

calling only her.

Old man, cardboard house collapsing,

this his only home;
Gasps and struggles, snow encrusted,
dying all alone.
Searching, needing, defeated, groping
curses his life and all he's known:
He hears a baby cry.
Baby in a cold dark cave
crying just for him;
Brought into this world to die
crying just for him.

Rich man inside glass and steel,

sees the scene below.
There are barriers, layers, shadows
he has never known.
Emptiness is his only guidance;
he lives inside a void:
Yet hears a baby cry.
Baby calling out his name
through all time and space;
reaching for him, reaching for us,
calling you and me.