There must have been others who retraced
their ancestors’ footprints over Sinai,
although no Moses basket launched upon the Nile;
instead, the Innocents wakened from a nightmare
by the whisper of a blade, the fading
memory of mothers’ final, ululating lullaby…

Innocence today plays with gunfire;
still unconsoled, our hands, like Herod’s,
holding court to gold, fear, and profits, grasping
at alibis, washed clean by rights…

And Christmas cards celebrate family
and firearms, oblivious or willful to the irony,
forgetful of the Innocents.
Where is the dream to lead us by another road?
Where wisdom to kneel, not beneath the falling sword
but humbly before the helpless, the innocently sleeping Prince of Peace?