It was magic when the star appeared,
Bright shining reshaped the customed sky.
It was magic to research, poring over books,
Speculations escalating in our talk,
Sparking vision beyond vision.
It was magic when the fog cleared
And the new king’s birth appeared
As the vision’s meaning set us on our way to find him.
It was magic choosing gifts fit: gold, frankincense myrrh.
It was magic on the journey, under the star’s leading
And magic of a sort in King Herod’s court,
Where power was ignorant,
intelligence not alerted by the star,
books read only under prodding.
Magic of what sort we learned later:
Artful dodging and ill-intending deception.
Then back to the real magic – even
The name was magic: Bethlehem
And the short road from Jerusalem:
Buoyed up by magic, we were out of ourselves.
And then,
The magic stopped.
The star stopped.
We stopped.
The dreaming stopped.
And
We were given wisdom to see
That when the magic stops,
We might be getting near.
There was something ordinary,
A mother and a baby,
With a father hovering by, not certain whether to belong.
No magic more.
There was something of a scandal here,
A baby in a manger,
A family in a stable,
Not a carry-on to carry on, we thought.
The end of magic.
Since there was no going on,
We presented our gifts
Honouring the king new born humanity,
No magic
A baby to grow in obscurity thirty years
Till the Man revealed the mystery of God
On a crossed road unrelieved by magic
God incarnate, God with us,
No Deus ex machina