The Spare Season's Subtle Song

 

The icy stream bubbles between
shallow stones
singing as she tumbles
by boulders 
and below submerged
black gum roots

A solitary titmouse whistles the descant
chickadees chirp a staccato antiphon
from on high
white-throats rustle
like brushes on a snare drum
in the scattered leaf layer below

Howling winds whine
through white oaks' bare branches
breezes rattle beeches' 
lingering leaves

Winter waiting in the woodland
Advent choir along Dogwood Run

Within - A Poem for Advent

 

Within our silence
the Song.

Within our longing
the Promise.

Within our darkness
the Light.

Within our sorrow
the Presence.

Within our tumult 
the Comfort.

Within our long waiting
the coming
of God.

Dawning

 

Frozen ground and frozen fingers
fumbling with latches
that secure barn doors
against the night,
sluggish opening
to the day
still shrouded
in darkness.

Frozen, nervous,
on high alert,
they assess the danger
of an unseen threat
beyond the fence line,
measuring their safety
inside a boundary
long ago erected
for their
protection.

Frozen water in the buckets,
frozen longings
in the soul,
desperate to know what
is real,
to see beyond the murkiness
of the what-if,
to know the safety
of an eternal
enfolding,
unfolding,
grace.

Yet, into the grip
of the unknown,
into the immobility
of our fear,
into our frenzied
effort to escape
the dark,
eventually,
finally,
always, 
the dawn.

Promise Obscured

Barren trees and frozen ground, interlacing grays and browns surrounding.
Dormancy with hidden promise, not yet expectation. Too early for swelling buds or coloring twigs. The coldest and deepest sleep is yet to come.
Silence.
Then... tapping, rattling, rustling debris falling from above, curtain of brown powder against the winter sky and branches. Life, after all.

Leaden sky, lifeless amber stalks as far as the eye can see. Low tide, expanse of mud and muck mostly, uncompromising honesty of what is, at the bottom of the marsh.
No illusions of abundance nor reflections of fullness, here.
Instead, crusted icy tributaries, like the tentacles of God winding through this
broken and unsuspecting world,
snake through the mire, unappreciated life-source.

Standing still, unmoving, unnoticed behind dried rushes
in the pale light.
A grey lump, inanimate, dead-stump like, invisible
until a single ray of sunlight reflects back from the white in his face and the gleam in his eye.
Suddenly there. Suddenly, "Oh, of course! How could I not see him,"
even as the sun retreats and he is returned to obscurity.
Sureness questioned...Alive, nonetheless.

Advent.