Advent 2008

by Stephen W. Smith

Is this feeling deep inside
the winter of advent?
The bewilderment of more
questions than epiphanies or answers?

A mother has forever lost her son.
A truly good man has lost his job.
A child will lose their sacred innocence.
Is this loss so necessary in the wait? Is this advent?

The tree loses its leaves.
A dreamer loses the dream
An old, crippled widow loses her sight.
So much loss. So long to wait.

This waiting often seems so long
as the cold captures the air
and will not let go its clinging grip.
This waiting which feels like a slow, coming death.

The star that releases its light
burns with the waiting for someone to see.
The star burns and just burns and waits
for someone out there to see the Light.

O Promised Star;
Thou who art Daybreak to my darkness,
Come quickly and flood my barren soul
with shimmers; rays of glorious light.