Saturday, Advent Week 2: A Poem

December 10, 2022

Please light a candle and join me on this Advent journey and exploration of the Psalms of Advent.  In my last blog, I wondered about the invitation to make praise both a worship and an everyday practice and experience.  This poem is the response to my reflection on that.  Like the psalm we have looked at the last two days, Psalm 146, this, too, is a song of praise.

Sun Poem

Shouldn’t there be a ritual for the rising of the sun
each day
with candles lit and dancing,
hands upheld in welcome,
songs lifted in praise?
Watch how the sky prepares itself
swathed in azure and violet
how the trees await, limbs lifted
naked and unashamed.
The hilltop holds itself steady
as the first sliver of light appears
behind it and fog like the veils of a dancer
cloaks the water’s face
in preparation for welcome.
Shouldn’t there be a ritual for the rising of the sun
each day as it crests the horizon
in full glory, round and fat and fiery
billions of years of hot white light
a miracle
that blazes into our eyes
so that we turn away, as if it were
the face of God?
Now it ignites the fog
shimmering in pink, turns the dew
to flickering light, droplets of water
on trees into iridescent strings
of pearls, calls forth
the redbirds in
scarlet robes to sing
aubades.
Shouldn’t there be a ritual, each day,
for the rising of the sun, for the promise
of new beginnings, for the grace granted
for another chance? Shouldn’t we bow
before it, weep in humble gratitude
tremble at the power that grants
us faithful constancy, for the fact
that what could burn us instead
blesses?

Blessings to you ~ Rosemary

Poem and Photo credit: Rosemary McMahan