Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours showcases poems by northern Illinois poets. This week’s featured poet is Judy Cummings.
Cummings is a northern Illinois poet and teacher. She is a member of the Illinois State Poetry Society, Poets & Patrons, and Rockford Writers' Guild.
Here’s a Christmas poem “O Little Town.”
Missiles hide stars
that once lit Bethlehem;
a child sleeps, dreamless,
crumpled under rubble,
hopes and fears buried
where Christ was born.
Families flee,
from age to age ;
fathers beat their chests;
mothers pray; innocents are slain.
Empires build to destroy.
We learn naught from history;
two thousand years on,
bombs deafen.
Angels, muted,
no longer sing
“Peace on Earth[1]Goodwill Toward Man,”
but lament our divisions.
Heaven weeps.
O Wondrous Love,
whose light illuminates
past all darkness,
free us from ourselves!
O, little town of Bethlehem,
how silently, how silently,
we see thee still.
