The Great Conjunction
The Great Conjunction
Connie T. Braun
In childhood we drove to the church under a starry sky, the North Star brighter than all others, and we believed
it was the star of Bethlehem that brought the Magi to the manger the night of his birth.
And what should it matter
that lambs are not born in December on the hillsides of Judea or that the Magi appeared later?
Chronos time is not the time of childhood, nor of mystics.
*
And perhaps the star that the Magi journeyed under was not a star after all, but a great conjunction
of planets.
It took the Magi, astrologers or astronomers, twelve days,
led all that way for a birth,
or death,
the worst time of the year
for such a long journey, the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly.
*
Astronomers name the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn after the star of Bethlehem.
After Epiphany, the earthly father dreams of safety for his child.
Connie T. Braun
Poet & Instructor
Connie’s scholarly and creative writing are explorations of memory and witness, the silences and language of trauma, the sites of geographical and spiritual displacement and belonging, and the pervasive paradoxes inherent in being human. Her academic and personal essays, poetry, and reviews, appear in various journals and anthologies, and her poetry has been set to musical compositions. She is a full member of the League of Canadian Poets, among other writing associations, and lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Her books can be found here: The Steppes Are the Colour of Sepia: A Mennonite Memoir. (Ronsdale Press, Vancouver, 2008) & Silentium: and Other Reflections on Memory Sorrow Place and the Sacred. (Resource Publications, Eugene, 2017)
Photograph by David Billings