We intentionally missed a couple days. But, today I offer you this delightful poem, short but evocative, by Oliver Herford entitled, “I Heard a Bird Sing in the Dark of December.” Don’t forget to visit The Friendly Fogey where I find most of these gems.
The almost perfect Madeleine L’Engle gets our spot for Advent, day 10 with her poignant poem, “Into the Darkest Hour.”
December 5th. The Second Sunday of Advent. Sometimes, in terms of prophetic Scriptures, the Sunday representing hope. The gravitas of a future better than our past, of something yet to come that outshines the gloom of dark days, uncertain and fear-filled.
I can’t say this is necessarily that, but it is a new one all the same. And, if it helps to birth hope, all the better.
Advent
Cup before the pour, cocoa, or tea.
Clouds, rain-swollen, before taking their moment.
Hearts before words, warm and rightly spoken.
Page before pen, story pushing out to meet its maker.
Inside, a child gazes out at virgin snow.
Child, new and eyes closed, before the first embrace.
Car, keys jangling in shaky hands, before first welcome.
Night, old and disheveled, before day-gates open.
Gravitas, bodies’ ache, release of first touch.
Eyes, leaden-lidded, before the thick of sleep.
Tired world, sore of woe, looks East.
Our offering for Adventia, day 6 comes to us by way of the Adventus Project, which did a wonderful Advent exploration last year. C. S. Lewis never disappoints!
What the Bird Said Early in the Year
C.S. Lewis
I heard in Addison’s Walk a bird sing clear:
This year the summer will come true. This year. This year.
Winds will not strip the blossom from the apple trees
This year, nor want of rain destroy the peas.
This year time’s nature will no more defeat you,
Nor all the promised moments in their passing cheat you.
This time they will not lead you round and back
To Autumn, one year older, by the well-worn track.
This year, this year, as all these flowers foretell,
We shall escape the circle and undo the spell.
Often deceived, yet open once again your heart,
Quick, quick, quick, quick! – the gates are drawn apart.
I missed a day. So, our beautiful offering from Christina Rossetti will make for two days in one. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, and still do.
Don’t forget to pop over and visit Real Poets Daily. They’re a wealth of inspiring poetry!
Yesterday was a busier day than I’d expected. I missed my daily Advent Poetry posting. Today brings this gem from Rowan Williams. Tomorrow, we’ll skip day 4 and post two for day 5. You’re welcome!
In my first post in this series, I explained the origins of my strange, made up word. Adventia, as I see it, is our foray into the headwaters of Advent – waiting, hoping, and preparing, together with Fragmentia, those literary illuminations of God’s in-breaking into our world to which we may unite the former.
For most of these we’re taking our cue from a favourite Instagram site of mine – #realpoetsdaily Today, we’re blessed by this gem by T. S. Eliot, from “East Coker.”
It could be said that
our journeys
are nothing less than
the accumulation
of barnacled hulls and salted prows,
of decks swabbed, well-waxed.
Our crew, composed of those
most impressive, help our slow, steady progress
on the coursing waves of coarser seas.
They sing the old songs.
It could be said that
our wayfaring breezes,
blushed in day-fat skies,
signal us to find their end,
pathways noble, chosen, fearless.
Our guide-stars, poised in Spring-fair heavens,
simplify our white-ribbon’d way
through cushioning waves.
It could be said that
this blue-borne sprawl before us
like weedless gardens,
paths without walls,
is a wordless song of melodies, uninterrupted
and well-key’d, meant for voices
of children and saints.
It could be said that
whatever shanties once joined
throats in the shared songs of adventure
were nothing more than the nursery
rhymes of spoil’d children,
sung by swaying lunar choirs
of the misshapen but hopeful.
Of all the things that could be said,
I will say but one:
of this or any journey,
in the outward way before us –
we are not the Captain of our ships,
we are only
adding sails.
Posted this recently to my Innerwoven blog. But, it’s just as timely and appropriate here. I hope you enjoy. Peace, friends…
“…in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart…”*
I love poetry. I love its exactitude, its wide-eyed innocence wed to unflinching honesty. The unforced rhythms of perfection, like Grandma’s gaze over well-worn glasses. It is the art of lovers, the science of thinkers, the wisdom of doers.
Poetry gives up her secrets cautiously, altruistically, slowly. Every word, like every note of a great symphony, is fully intended, placed unequivocally in its place with an eye, and ear, to building something remarkable out of simple things, something well beyond the sum of its parts.
In a thousand ways, we are the amalgam of our carefully written words; each one added to the emerging poem of our lives. In this process, there are no real mistakes. There is only the discernment asked of us in the changing turn of phrase that will ultimately become…
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Another good one by fellow poet and all round great human being, Kelly Belmonte. Check out everything on her page (https://allninemuses.wordpress.com). Well worth your time.
Are not all poems found poems?
Are not all poets failed poets
failing in a form fated to fail?
Poetry is not truth, but the last
gasp of revelation after hearing
the truest word. The poet
speaks in tongues to a world
that cannot bear truth, whose words
are woodpeckers at the rotting beam,
wind rattling against the eaves.
The poet is found a poet
as a poem is found in the ruins
of a dying language, the last breath
of truth in a truth-famished land.
Find me in these ruins.
*****
Photo by Jiannis Tsiliakis on Unsplash
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