With the glow of a thousand lights
Brightening my daughter’s eyes
Cold air and a winter jacket
She learns to keep her hands warm
buried deep within her pockets
And so she buys time
To walk and watch and wander
It’s her third Christmas
And she is taking it all in
Slowly
This year she learns to wait
Under the tree and in disguise
Gifts collect then multiply
Not all for her- now she knows
Little boxes wrapped – ribbons and bows
anticipation, and a little hope deferred
Entry into the Church’s calendar
And on Christmas morning
Teaching the joy of a longing
Fulfilled
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