Bethlehem

Oh, he's who
I was born where the olive trees lean
Like old saints
Where the body bends low and the fig
Tree waits
Stone upon stone
This hill remembers
David's heart and
Jesse's embers
My mother sang songs as she
Swept the floor
And the stars wrote prophecies
Above our door
We breathe in dust.
We cradle the sky
This little town where kings
Learn to cry
Bethlehem my dust and crown.
Where the shepherd's night is glory bound
Cradle of
God in the cradle of lambs.
He
Came like the frost to our waiting hands.
I'll carry this name till
I'm underground
Belehem my dust and crown
I've knelt in caves
That still smell of m
Where heaven unclosed himself to the earth
The ox and the straw knew more
Than kings
The world forgot, but the silence sings
We bake our bread.
We tend our scars
Still dreaming beneath the
Nazarene stars
Not much to claim
No gold, no thrones
But he stitched the world from
My broken stones
Bethlehem my dust and crown
Where eternity wore a thornless brow
Swaddled embrace the word made warm.
Thunder asleep in a mother's arms
The weight of the world held in this ground
Bethlehem my dust and crown
I've heard the hooves of
Rome on stone.
But as
Christ split time
And claimed his own in swaddling cloth
The promise stirred a sword for a soul
A womb for the word
Bethlehem, my dust and crown
Where mercy poured and love came down
From manger to mountain, from blood to flame.
He bore our ashes.
He
Wore our name.
The king once slept where
Lambs lie down bethlehem
My dust and crown
My dust and crow