Yesterday was the occasion of what has become my annual Christmas poetry luncheon at Buca di Beppo in Washington, D.C. This year I co-hosted the event with Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, whose Southern charm was needed to offset my post-60 gruffness.
I intended to post videos of all twelve poetry readers, but, alas, as it turns out, there was not enough light in the “Pope Room” for my Flip HD Mino. The videos are all tinged with an alien red hue, but if I can figure out how to edit them on my iMovies, I can post some of them later this week.
The first one I would like to post, if permitted, is the reading by Manny Miranda, a well-known judicial activist and founder of the Cardinal Newman Society. He read a poem about members of the military who are on duty far away on Christmas Day. It was deeply touching and, for me, the highlight of the lunch.
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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But I must also mention Chris Butler, from Americans for Tax Reform, who read for 14 minutes from the poetry of English martyr, Jesuit Robert Southwell (1561-1594). Chris read beautifully, and I invited him back next year to read us Edmund Spencer’s “Faerie Queene” 🙂
My own contribution was a poem I wrote on the flight back from Ireland last Friday. I’m not a poet, though I love to read them, especially aloud.
But the idea for this poem just keep pressing itself forward into my mind, until I gave up on the bad Delta airlines movies and started writing. It’s dedicated to my son Chippy, whose baptismal name is Joseph, because I would not have been able to write this without knowing him.
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St. Joseph
Deal W. Hudson
Advent, 2009
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To Cyprian
There he is, the man in the back, almost a shadow — a chiaroscuro

of the manger scene.
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No eastern star to light his face.
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Yet, he found the place, and he paid, only to be somewhere else when
great artists imagined their pietas.
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Who complains of the woman’s part in faith?
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It was hardly good at the time, the news his wife brought him. He was to be the father of another Father’s child.
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While her soul magnified, his shrank from view.
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The story was familiar, a leader would come, as prophets
predicted and rabbis taught.
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Neither had mentioned the price he would pay.
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His wife would be called immaculate, while the husband
bore the burden of her sinlessness.
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Her love would flow, like light, toward her son — his would burst
like blood from a swollen wound.
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Yet no father could have flown more quickly from Herod’s wrath.
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Even at the end, left out of the picture and off the stage — his tears at the
Cross neither recorded nor remembered.
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He grieved as the sword pierced them both.
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The world calls him saint, but they don’t know him. Nature had been mocked, and no angel cleared his way with supernatural ease.
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When Joseph chose his son, as his son, love itself was born.
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