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Babe
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Advent 4
That sometimes falls on Christmas Eve
Smooshing our liturgies
Though sometimes it is Christmas day
For greater smooshing
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We light four candles now
From sources
Matches
Friction inside brass cases
Long metal sticks with flames
Other candles
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There is a fifth candle
Waiting
Which doesn’t stand for anything
No merging of symbols
Or guesses at tradition
It is Christ’s candle
It means Christ
Alone
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The baby born at last
Who came to term
In Advent
And in that
A hurrying of the season
One month
While eight months somehow
Happened somewhere else
In ordinary time
Perhaps
A mother
Would know how to count
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But Christ
Soon will be born
Another season
Lasting something like
Twelve days
Twelve days to celebrate
To sing like angels
With the fact they sing
Though nothing
Like their song
Their heavenly keys
Supernal rhythms
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So this is the last
Before he comes
Anticipation’s nearly done
And (nearly) all our candles lit
We know
We are illumined
As much as we shall have
Before arrival
This final lesson
Only
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In that
Christ arrives
Christ arrives
Not only once a year
Though once
As a liturgical
Baby
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There’s
Dedication
While the rest of the time
He’s pretty grown
With grown-up things to say
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Though he elevates
Other children
In the notion that
Innocence
Unworldly honesty
Make the way to lead
As well as
How to live
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So ask for blessings
On the child
For we might not know
Where God ends
And the human part begins
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There might be surprise
And pain
To have come into the world
The way as all
Like us
Who arrive
And now to live here
With us
For us all
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C L Couch
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Photo by Anna Vander Stel on Unsplash
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