Poem: "An Old Woman Remembers: The Flight into Egypt" by Kilian McDonnell, OSB

When dark clouds cover moon’s

craters we push open creaky stable

doors, lead the donkey out to leave

for Egypt before Herod’s

soldiers pound upon gate. We hear

Rachels screaming, sons slaughtered

by decree, while we angle across

plowed barley fields, like robbers

with sagging bags of silver drachmas,

always looking back, avoiding

roads. Stadia and stadia later

we hear uncertain night noises

of distant battles, lost and won:

an ox bellowing, and the hissing

of ten skin-headed vultures

as they claw and squabble over a dead

sheep. We pass on the far side.

After two weeks off Gaza roads

we’ve not crossed the border, but far

enough to rest a day beside a huge

abandoned columbarium, rebels’ lair,

filled with white bird droppings,

and coppery green pigeon feathers.

To rest the donkey Joseph stops

beneath a turpentine tree while my infant

wails, wet diaper full once

more. On a flat rock I change

him, give him my nipple, He’s

beautiful beyond all imagining.

In thorn bushes Joseph finds a nest

of sand colored eggs, enough to get us

to the Nile. What cobra-crowned

Ramses reigns as Son of sun-

god Re, demanding bricks,
withholding straw, and knows not Joseph?