Harold Macdonald’s Muse

Harold Macdonald Christmas Poetry

Alleluia! The soundless shout comes across the frozen lake.

Winds rise and fade, the world holds its breath,

in stillness wakens not the babe of God, the world’s guest

speechless at a birth for all creation’s sake.

Silent praise is the song’s soul today.

You hear it in the music’s many strange directions

as jazz and gospel warp cathedral choir perfections

honouring equally the child upon the hay.

Is it not Being’s echo, the necessary substratum,

this quiet whence all arises and subsides?

The hollow core in which good and truth resides

in all that’s said, in every datum?

The noise obliterates when we assert, proclaim,

yet the silent sound of Being is still the same

Midi: Bonn

Background: Frozen Lake Michigan