‘Thirsty’ A Christmas poem

Every December I work towards crafting a Christmas poem that pushes against the sanitised ‘Hallmark Christmas’ guff that fills envelopes and cliche’. Every year I return to the fragility and vulnerability of the incarnation and the chaotic commonness of Christ’s entrance into the world. To me, the Christmas story is a love story demonstrated in breathtaking solidarity.

Jesus wept
but first, He screamed.

God with lungs
singing to the stars,
breathing in Bethlehem
murmuring mysteries
in a mother tongue
only known to babes
and angels.

There He lay
in the lap of humanity.
Utterly vulnerable.
Never again
can we declare
that God is distant
and does not know
what it’s like to be fragile
and in need.

I imagine the first scream was long,
loud,
proud,
announcing His own arrival, and
demanding salvation
from the shock of elements
and endless thirst –
milk from a breast in the beginning,
vinegar from a sponge in the end.

‘Thirsty’
by David Tensen
(2025)

Previous Christmas poems here
Feeding God – (several languages available)
The Incarnation

photo: Jessica Hearn via Unsplash

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