New Songs for Mary, in 2025

a quiet happy teenager,
she enjoyed helping her mother in the house, 
and playing with younger children,
telling them stories, taking them for little walks.
Sometimes she would sit listening
when the old men recited verses,
words of the prophets, histories and visions.

One day when she was outside, 
there came a huge powerful wind -
it was as if it filled her whole body,
blew inside her, bringing piercing sweetness,
almost lifting her off the ground,
filling her with immense gladness;
then she stayed outside a long time, waiting and listening…

"Mother," said Mary, "I need to ask you something."
"Go ahead," Anna smiled, pausing in her food-chopping.
Mary said, "My periods have stopped — three months now."
Four eyes share a profound stillness.
"But I haven't had sex with anyone.
I don't know what to say to Joseph."
Anna was silent; then she spoke:
"Do you feel any changes in your body?
The world is filled with mysteries, there is so much
I do not understand. 
I love you and I trust you, Mary.
We shall wait."
So the months passed, and the tiny life within Mary
grew and grew, and she was enormously happy.
And the wonderful thing was that Joseph loved her,
did not accuse, simply accepted her truth,
cared for her, laughed with her when the baby inside started kicking,
and together they thought up names for the child.

Then came Caesar’s decree —every man must report 
at the place where his family traditionally came from.
So together with other families having a similar lineage,
they got ready —it would take at least a week’s walking,
from Nazareth, southwards to Bethlehem 
on foot, stopping each night for food and rest.
It was hilly country, but for much of the way
there were well-marked local roads.
So they travel to Bethlehem, Mary very pregnant.
“Can Anna come too, if a midwife is needed?”
(bumping along on a donkey not a cheering thought).
After about nine days, they reach Bethlehem,
little town at the foot of the Jerusalem hill. 
They are the last to get there, the whole town is fully booked.
As they arrive, Mary’s waters break: she feels the warmth
trickling down her legs.
She prays: “Help me Lord; your will be done”.
Joseph and Anna are wonderful, find a warm outhouse,
where the stalled animals fill the space with their breath;
it’s a cold winter night, star-filled dark skies
one hugely bright, right above, that’s been with them all the way.
“As if watching over us”, thought Mary, “keeping our dark road light”.

II. THE BIRTH

pain, pain, pain, the world outside shrinks into nothing,
I know only suffering, end of everything,
NO — out of this pain is coming new life
(maybe through death there grows another life).
keep on pushing, slow deep breathing, 
until, one final heave and —out slips, 
between my legs, a tiny body,
brown, gowned in wet skin, crowned with damp black hair
my baby and my son.
Slowly, he raises his  small head and looks at me
with blurry eyes. All of me smiles back.

Hail, little one, king of my life
it is you we have been waiting for  so long.
I hear the angels sing…
Joy to the world.