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POETRY
Solstice Poem for
Advent
I hold vigil for the candles light flickering
blue in its last drama.
My eye darts between book and flame small as
it is, floating on wax
not wanting to miss the moment when fire goes
out.
I am careful of breathing these words too close lest glowing
orange hung with blue
blow out. Growing impatient I tend the stove
where moments before
I refused to leave, fearing dissolution while I
was away. Returning I find
the end of wick stalwartly clinging to
candlestick. Whats taking so long?
I demand of the air, like a
mother in labor
like my own ancestors huddled in gloom around the
flickering light of mid-December.
-- Judith Robbins Whitefield, Maine
Advent
Winters stalled, that in-between stare of
airport gates where, undefined by walls, the waiting gather, seeing
only escalators moving only air.
The cactus is dying, the lady
slipper has long slid back to dust, and carrots in the fridge revert
to mush.
The cat curls on the winter clothes in boxes, refuses to
be cute. Even memory shuts down, some five oclock of the
mind, or an arcane feast that only brains celebrate.
How long, oh
Lord? impatient body cries.
Some deeper, wiser spirit in me knows
this waiting is better than any carnival, more loving than a
kiss.
-- Sr. Doretta Cornell, RDC Bronx, New York
Cathedral
Light
The way the light glazes the windows, halo for
crucifix and stained glass -- radical uprooting of old
incarnations.
Epiphany, God with us, the past
solstices offering: a star in the east, the babe, the son of God.
Bless us, oh Christ, in our darkness. Grant wisdom, spirit of dawn and
morning light.
-- Stella Nesanovich Lake Charles, La.
Spirit of the Christmas
Past
Hunkering now by the dying farolito blowing
warm breath into his stiff palms it soothes him to know how it used to be
when for nine days they escorted the Holy Couple to a different
house each night pleading for a warm place to stay and afterward
how they always celebrated
how good it was to gaze out the window
late into the night at the last farolito that marked the Couples
journey until it was only a dozing ember and he would count off one day
less yes but the best part came when there were no more days left to
count when after the Misa del Gallo he
would walk for a long time and go
very far never minding the cold with his bellyful of hot posole singing
Mis Chreesmes through fogswirled breath at each front door returning
at last with stinging ears and knuckles all blue and the brown paper bag
filled with hard candies and oranges and maybe a few pennies
it
soothes him to know because no one has him over for the posadas anymore
and there is no more hard candy when he sings
-- Ed Chavez Albequrque, N.M.
Luminaria
Chapped hands cup the taper to clone a yellow
tongue on the singed tip And the brown softens
Blackened footfalls
dot silhouettes in the blue stillness
disturbed only by
a breeze along the curb teasing the flame
And the blaze
struggles
In the damp sand the wick bleeds a waxy pool down and
down until the eye blinks no more in the hardened puddle
And
the vigil sleeps
-- Ed Chavez Albuquerque, N.M.
Crèche
Clout
Sheep have it; Goats do not. Oxen are in; Hippos
are out. Donkeys win; Turtles lose. Camels are a hit; Pandas are a
flop.
-- Francis L. Kunkel New York
Women of
Color
They have cradled civilizations In the countries of
the Rift And around the Mare Nostrum of the Romans: Moorish and Greek,
Near Eastern, Queens of Upper and Lower Egypt Streaking their eyes
already the color Of lava, with the kohl-enhancements Of their volcanic
fires. Out of volcanic Ashes, a first dark feminoid, animal- Faced, bore
her young to safer caves; And in a cave, redolent with the dung Of other
animals, at civilizations Earliest apex, a girl of color bent Her
brown limbs to birth Gods Son.
-- Nancy G. Westerfield Kearney, Neb.
Poems should be previously unpublished and limited to about 50
lines and preferably typed. Please send poems to NCR POETRY, 115 E.
Armour Blvd., Kansas City MO 64111-1203. Or via e-mail to
poetry@natcath.org or fax (816) 968-2280. Please include your street
address, city, state, zip and daytime telephone number. NCR offers a
small payment for poems we publish, so please include your Social Security
number.
National Catholic Reporter, December 20,
2002
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