‘Cure’ is an old word

A poem for Christmas.

Everywhere the mother of God walked, 
Maximus the Confessor said,
she consecrated the earth. 

On the soles of Mary’s feet, 
pith of cedar. Black spruce 
watched from the shore. 
Angels followed, leaving 
caribou tracks. She stepped 
and the world 
blinked. Everything 
happened. 

Body knit to soul and human
knit to God and the blessings 
of narwhals swarmed: thousands of them 
stitched the water between ice floes,
each horn a medieval, magical cure. 

There are millions of fir trees 
in this country, and have you counted 
the needles on each fir tree? 
Without opening an eye,
choruses of needles
see light.

Art by Maaike VanderMeer