Mille Cherubini in Coro

A biting, grasping cold.

The land 

in stark outline,

washed 

in the effervescence

of a vaulted star.

The world 

in waiting;

poor, benighted, 

watchful 

shepherds.

Wishful too, 

the ancestral hope 

left unfulfilled.

Upon barren, 

Judean hillsides,

the World 

still cries,

'Let it be soon'