Here's a seasonal poem that even Stephen Fry would approve of (I hope!)
That
Christmas
God treated himself to a new coat.
Till then he’d
not really been dressed for visiting.
He’d nothing dull enough
to wear.
Quite
early he had come to realise
his appearance didn't put people at
ease.
Even the very first ones were nervous—
when he took an
afternoon stroll round the garden
they would run and hide.
And
when he showed someone around,
he had to admit their reactions
were hardly reassuring.
He
saw it was a little difficult
to be wholly relaxed in the presence
of a host
with dazzling white hair, emerald eyes
and a tongue
like a sword,
seated on a blazing throne
guarded by four
six-winged living creatures
and two dozen elders chanting
incessantly.
Polite, yes, but probably not relaxed.
Likely to
slop tea on to the chocolate digestives.
So
he took to meeting just a trusted few
in places carefully
arranged—
a mountain or a desert
away from crowds.
He
made them build a tent for conferences,
with heavily-restricted
access.
When he spoke, he found that quiet voices worked best.
Eventually
it became easier just to send a messenger.
Of
course people were still startled
when a shining creature several
metres high
materialised in their living rooms
like something
from the Starship Enterprise,
but they did their job.
And
angels don’t have feelings you can hurt.
He
learned that people
were more comfortable with their own kind.
Pleased when you showed an interest, of course,
but when the
boss from the top floor drops by
the conversation’s always
stilted,
and both sides are relieved after he’s gone.
So
when the time came
for the business that had to be done,
he
went incognito.
Dressing down for the occasion,
he chose
skin.
Not suede or leather, only skin.
Close-fitting,
durable, anonymous, adaptable.
No special style or colour.
Skin
was his lifetime companion.
He
nursed the scabs of childhood games on his knees and elbows.
He
felt the muscles grow inside it,
the ligaments stretch when he
extended himself.
He fingered the callouses made by a workman’s
tools on his palms.
He
came to know skin from the inside.
He knew the pleasant shock of
cold water
splashed across his face in the midday heat.
He
knew the touch of cool parchment
unrolling beneath his
fingertips,
the dryness in his mouth as he prepared
to read
what was written there about him.
He
noticed skin harden
under feet that walk long distances.
After
sleepless nights
he felt it hang in folds beneath his eyes.
When
he was most tired
it felt almost detached from him,
a loose
sack keeping him warm.
Once,
when he thought he had their confidence enough,
he gave three
of them a glimpse of his real appearance.
They were terrified, and
he never risked it again.
He
saw skin made repulsive by disease, and healed it.
He saw Lazarus
walking,
and felt a ripple of gooseflesh on his spine.
He
knew the feel of an animal’s rough back beneath his thighs,
and
breezes from waving branches.
When anger sluiced blood to the
surface of the skin
he felt his face flush red.
He watched
how liquids trickled over it.
He could tell the different
tensions of tears and ointment
as they ran down his cheeks and
beard.
He
washed skin carefully,
not just his own but others’.
He saw
how it protected them,
the tiny beads of water dripping
from
their feet into his bowl.
He
knelt on dew-drenched grass
and felt his cloak cling round his
legs.
His burning forehead prickled with cold drops of fear.
He
felt how,
when whipped repeatedly,
skin disintegrates and the
soft flesh underneath
is ploughed up like a bright red field.
He
knew then how necessary it had been.
Skin
had dulled the pain of being a man,
and kept the parts together
long enough.
Now it was time to shed it.
It
was torn in strips from his back,
gouged out of the palms of his
hands,
and pierced so that fluids would spill out more easily.
At the end he saw it was no more
than a ripped bag bursting
with offal,
cut down and wrapped
like meat to put into cold
storage.
It
was finished.
What would happen next,
even he did not exactly
know,
but he had watched creatures discard their coats
in
preparation for something.
He was ready
for a new and
different skin.
Godfrey
Rust
Written
for the carol service at St John’s, West Ealing in 1995
