SUFJAN STEVENS – Christmas Woman

Christmas is the time of year
When the patrons and the panthers
Come and commandeer
Christian, put away your fuss
With the tipping of the handlers
As the pagans must

I know for a century
We were scrambling to assemble
What a man believes
I know for a time I let
To believe that human kindness
Would prevail instead

Woman, have you lost your kind?
There are snakeskin stealers
Seething in the afterlife
Christian in the advent house
You confess the incarnation
With the breast turned out

Have you seen the Christ the king
Suckling nurseries in snakeskin
In the armored seat?
Christian, put away your woes
Welcome grief and crime and anguish
With the happiest host

Oh, I was thinking by myself
I was remembering
Every moment by the river
When it froze last night

And in the fullness of the moon
I felt the baby kick beside me
She was grabbing happy, healthy life

I lived it out to be a soldier
I was channeling Middle Ages
I was captured by the Norsemen rite

The sign that passeth comprehending
She was tending right beside me
She was captured in the midst of men

And then it kissed me on my shoulder
All the possibilities of motion
Resting rightly, right inside of me