<koertge's "christmas eve"> 2003-05-01.12:18 a.m. Christmas Eve Ronald Koertge is also the night the animals can talk. One would think they'd love it, at first to praise Jesus, then to speak about the things they have felt and thought all year: What is inside the house? Why do men weep? Isn't it weird to be meat? So they hit their marks in the cr�che, see the morsel of divinity, hear the tortured words. And it is all profoundly unsettling because the ox is still an ox in his heavy ox's body, and the donkey's lips almost bruise making the O's Hosannahs demand. Christmas Day is best. The farmer, a little drunk in his new boots, has added a handful of grain to the hot mash, and when the animals bow their heads, there is the sound of small bells. back /& forth /& frosting names are often sad