NVN Wednesday: BABY JESUS ON A KEFFIYEH

by Catherine Gonick

*

Beyond the manger sounds the roar—of politics,
revisionist history, replacement theology. Of
Palestinian identity and Jewish. Pogroms,
resistance, genocide. Cultural heritage, 
21st century swastika. Hope, love, and peace
to an overheated world. What the Pope
really meant. What it means when Christmas
coincides with the first day of Chanukah.
 
As a baby, Jesus can’t yet speak about symbols
or freedom of the artist. And no one mentions
on His behalf that to children, parents, even if one
of them is God, are only accidents of fate.
No child asks to be born or arrives knowing
its name. All are divine. The rest is learned.

*

Catherine Gonick has published poetry in a wide range of journals, including The New Verse News, Notre Dame Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, and in anthologies including Support Ukraine, in plein air, and Rumors, Secrets and Lies: Poems about Pregnancy, Abortion and Choice. She works in a business that seeks to lower the rate of global warming.