Rachel Weeping: Christmas and Gaza

Advent eventide, where light shines in the darkness,

The obsidian envelope still cedes to it's piercing amber,

As the ebbing year's wilting calendar heralds the birth--

Yet lullabies falter as trembling voices in thick lament,

In wretched wails of prayers -- receiving no answer,

But the bloody, bloodless cold, the taciturn starkness

of void.

A voice is heard in Ramah,

    weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children

    and refusing to be comforted,

    because they are no more.

A Son of Man, heralded by angels, and star charts of mages,

Is born in squalor in the land of promise, a land of violence.

Mary's child survives slaughter,  a refugee in our gospel story,

As horror to neighbours or kin, as infants bloodily dispatched.

Save for angel hymns, for kinfolk weeping -- scathing silence,

As was in the beginning, is now, even to the end of the ages,

Of waiting.

Advent to epiphany -- Emmanuel with us, still shrouded --

In silence. History seems trapped in perpetual ordinary time.

The mercy at hand, in word and water and bread and wine,

And Spirit-peace o'er all wafts through the rent temple veil.

Still, this peaceable anthem is stifled, like the muted chime

Of church bells in war time whose peeling rings are clouded,

In the fury.

Christmas cancelled in Bethlehem,

Rachel weeps for her lost children.

Children weep for lost parents,

As Palestinians Kin,

To every Genome 

Of our lost Humanity, 

Can wait no more.

Advent eventide, where light shines in the darkness,

The obsidian envelope still cedes to it's piercing amber.

A light for revelation to the Gentiles

And a glory for the people of Israel.

Ode to a Son in Law

 

When a girl child is no longer a child,

And begins to look under new leaves,

Questioning, discovering, and loving,

New loves, new places, new thoughts,

A parent -- or step, both joys and grieves,

That inevitable call that beguiles.

One day, came he whose eyes adored,

Formed in faith, and a rich imaginary,

Wise and wisening, behold him inweave,

His heart, his life, with hers, and then ours,

Joyful, trusting , tearful  -- did he marry,

Thus bound sweetly in these tender cords.

As days to months to years, our fellowship,

Enriching our circle in punnery and poise,

As seasons season with mirth and melancholy,

Incipient creases reveal a depth in his soul,

As in all-- testing reveals his metal, the alloys,

Of Matt, husband -- even in son-in-lawship,

A good man,

We are proud,

To love.

Place

Butterflies flutter fly, mid twists of trees,

Pale-winged, like jittery petals in the breeze,

Regents in a world of pollen -- budding blooms.

Intricate pixies -- fragile as breath, ever looms,

Their finitude,

The shadow of death.

Paired wood-doves alight lightly on some twig,

Chestnut plumes weaved smooth, heads preen a jig. 

Ever content cooing a haunting melodic longing,

Beckon bird choirs to the grace of every dawning,

Of their given days,

Of their given breath.

Swarming cicadas  -- trilling crescendo gives them away,

Still unseen as a smoky sky charcoals in the dusk of day.

From depths emerging, for this time, to call and respond,

Their season to mate, to spawn, and be predated upon,

'Til their ranks dwindle,

And only silence is left.

One wanderer wandering in his waning summers,

His steps fall heavier, his frame yields, he lumbers,

Contrary to fellow creatures -- a sojourner out of place,

Averting the beatific vision, like the parents of our race,

Beloved and yet breathless,

Before the very life breath,

Of God.

Lazarus Hope

This day he is risen, he is risen indeed,

Both liturgy and hymn confess it is so.

Yet morning light, through the window,

Only a dawning of another day of need,

Heralds.

John the revelator, beloved and exiled,

Witnessed the great dragon cast down,

By a son of man draped in crystal gown,

Crucified lamb, risen Lord of all reconciled,

Behold.

Chapels to cathedrals, in epochs of waiting,

So my own journey,  in a smattering of days

Luster's dimming radiance of languishing rays,

The eucharistic gospel with the fire abating,

Grows cold.

Still, Lazarus and Thomas cannot forget,

That cherished behold the fragility of death,

Cold bodies and spirits quiver with new breath,

Charity and hope overshadow sorrow and regret.

As foretold,

As retold.

Hope,

Still.

Glacial Rest

Wintry zephyrs dash and dart 'mid trees and walls,

Skating o'er grass, whispering through windows.

As clouds shiver in the twilight, sleeting misty,

O'er every dormant thing! Frosty imps proceed,

Collecting icy cumulous tears, with glassy reed--

To gloss each branch, each leaf -- clear and crispy.

As dormers and portholes crystal smeared shadows,

Which glaciate lovely as frost whirls and sprawls,

O'er glade or wood, or nook,

O'er every glacial rest.

Hush.