Gloria in excelsis deo
Latin phrase from long ago
Translation of angelic chorus
Sung to those who watched by night
The sheep who often wondered off
Struck with fear and then delight
“Glory to God in the highest”
They never cease to declare
And now here in Christmas carols
Sung this time of year
Here – in a shopping mall –
Underneath florescent glow
Shoppers ascending and descending
So light upon their toes
My items gathered to check out
When the glorias began
I turned and saw the growing queue
My wallet heavy in my hand
Gloria in excelsis deo
I gathered my things in plastic bags
I walked through the rain to my car
and turned on the radio
The rest of the poems from Rusten Harris’s Advent series on Moss Kingdom:
Incarnation, Christmas Eve, Kings, Some Kind of Glory, Chains, Gifts, Quotidian Couple, A Thousand Lights, Eve & Mary, Treasured Up, Christmas, Winter Staves, The Glorias, Cherubim, Joseph, Strange Redeemer, Womb, Magi, Temple Trough, Advent, Lord’s Day, Far as the Curse is Found, Jubilee, The Massacre of the Innocents, Liturgical Time
Other Advent poems on Moss Kingdom:
December 21: an Advent poem for the Winter Solstice, Of Edmund and Aslan, Tiptoe Hope, The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats