Lay for the Day 9th January

Some time after the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem – celebrated in the Feast of Epiphany on 6th January – Joseph, warned in a dream, takes his wife Mary and infant son Jesus and flees into Egypt. Thus the boy escapes the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem ordered by King Herod.

Out Where the Pines Grow

Out where the pines grow dark and tall,
Mary and Joseph are feeling small,
Out where the pines grow dark and tall
And night begins to fall,
The moon begins to rise
And stars to fill the skies where angels, midnight blue,
Singing round their heads they flew,
Each with a golden crown
And flame snows on the ground.

Green grow the reeds of Galilee,
Green grow the willows of Jordan,
Black is the sky over Calvary
And all the fields are golden.

Out where the pines grow dark and deep,
Two lost strangers try to sleep,
Out where the pines grow dark and deep
And wolves around them creep,
Hungry, thin and grey.
Who’ll keep them at bay but angels’ diamond spears
Where the ice hangs down in tears.
All night their emerald eyes
And their howling iron cries.

Green grow the reeds of Galilee,
Green grow the willows of Jordan,
Black is the sky over Calvary
And all the fields are golden.

Out where the pines bow down their heads
Over the travellers’ stony bed,
Out where the pines bow down their heads,
The sun climbs clear and red,
The frozen stream it melts
With a sound like chiming bells down in the vale.
They pick up the rocky trail,
Jesus’s mother and Joseph,
With nobody but each other.

Green grow the reeds of Galilee,
Green grow the willows of Jordan,
Black is the sky over Calvary
And all the fields are golden.

Words and music by The Children

 

The Lay Reader: an archive of the poetic calendar