Epiphany B - January 7, 2024

With the voices singing in our ears, saying

That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,

Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;

With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,

And three trees on the low sky,

And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,

Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,

And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,

But there was no information, and so we continued

And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon

Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,

And I would do it again, but set down

This set down

This: were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.

At the celebration of Epiphany, I find myself seeking out the words of the poet T.S. Eliot in his poem The journey of the Magi. In his poem Eliot tells about the difficult journey of the Magi in the voice of one who was there. The narrator comments on the weather, cold, and the rugged places where they slept and how eventually they decided to journey at night getting little sleep. When they finally find the manger the narrator comments on the scene, wondering if he was seeing birth or death. This is how the poem ends: