Songs of Bethlehem: Nativity Poems follows my journey from Israel to cleaning stalls at a horse barn in North Carolina. The poems range from free verse images such as Barn smell: scents from the Ark to sonnet rhymes like But this childs beating heart / alters Roman policy from the start. The poems reflect the geography of Palestine and the political tensions between the occupation of the Roman army and the messianic faith of Jerusalem. The poems chart the making of a poet as I explored the incarnational history that surrounds the biblical narrative whose characters inhabit the place of Bethlehem. From The Magis Epiphany In the end a child brought us down to earth, The old abstractions fell apart in Bethlehem. What I once knew by dream, I now know by proof.