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(x = space)

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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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