AND THE DOVE DESCENDS...

ADVENT WAITS

for M, Christmas 1995

Advent waits. It names and holds the darkness,
Keeps faith alive through dark and lasting night,
Faith in the far-off dawn, so long awaited,
In faith proclaims the coming of the light.

Our earth stood still, our earth in night was smothered,
While all around, to others, seasons came;
Hell’s darkness may be hot or cold but never
Holds promise or anticipates a name.

And shall this dark we’ve dwelt in prove infernal?
Shall time expose our yearnings as mere dreams?
Shall we live on, our mouths still full of ashes?
Can God be even crueler than he seems?

No, we will make an Advent of this night
And loudly praise the unknown dawning light.


PERFECT LOVE

17 July 00

What we’re denied returns to us in dreams:
Where death has robbed us of the source of love,
That love appears, denies its death, and speaks;
And we may wake to sorrows drowned in joy.

What we ourselves deny, our wretched schemes,
Alike have life beyond what we approve;
The self we shun drinks in our fear and seeks
If not to walk in nightmare, to annoy.

The road not taken beckons — and it gleams —
The love we trampled shakes off death to move;
Awake, we label those most like us freaks —
Those like our former selves we would destroy.

Our fear binds us in night; love makes us see
That love alone has pow'r to set us free.

.