From his Sabbath Poems, 1987 VI

Remembering the way it happened once,

We cannot turn away the thought,

As we go out, cold, to our barns,

Toward the long night's end, that we

Ourselves are living in the world

It happened in when it first happened,

That we ourselves, opening a stall

(A latch thrown open countless times

Before), might find them breathing there,

Foreknown: the Child bedded in straw,

The mother kneeling over Him,

The husband standing in belief

He can scarely believe, in light

That lights them from no source we see,

A morning's light, the air

Around them joyful as a choir.

We stand with one hand on the door,

Looking into another world

That is this world, pale daylight

Coming just as before, our chores

To do, the cattle all awake,

Our own white frozen breath hanging

In front of us; and we are here

As we have never been before,

Sighted as not before, our place

Holy, although we knew it not.