Coming Arrival
written by: Stephen Kingsnorth
While patient waiting not my scene,
this celebration, birth we’ve known,
pretence that past a future gain,
a complement, to be soon seen?
So advent rings, symbolic signs,
five candles for approaching weeks,
Christingles, calendars, and wreaths
around door knockers, room with inn?
Church cycling starts (in western eyes) –
thematic mix in pulpit talk
with advent, though the world prepares
for Christmas, New Year, resolute.
The fast preceding season’s feast,
red letter when permission, eat;
but how’s the menu of delight
when cave birth, cowshed, fore in lore?
That pregnant pause, teen testing time,
full weight of truth in motherlode,
as folk alert, talk undermines,
‘no better than she should be’ words.
But there’s the Word in crumbled homes,
in Gaza and the Middle East,
whatever faith, or colour, creed,
the manger lies where rubble heaped.
Cold coming had, those training days,
(as four explore what’s to be learnt),
for caravan well under way,
good news beyond old Zion’s walls.
Thus foreign wise or shepherd crew
(ill-disciplined, religious laws) –
more volumes hold (like Disney sold)
their angle (angels?), spin untold.
Each claims their bold theology
(their editorials behold!) –
is that why advent mix confused,
unstable, as their focus stalls?
Now here’s the preparations laid –
a King whose power swaps might for love,
so lore from Eden, crossroad’s tree,
amalgamated in the One.
- Composed - December 26, 2024
- Coming Arrival - December 8, 2024
- Green Room - September 21, 2024
