Mary- first century Palestine
Most common of female names
Young virgin betrothed to Joseph
a carpenter -most common of trades
An ancient quotidian couple
Merely out to make their way
Joseph’s hands calloused with labor
Mary thinks of her wedding day
Their story one among many
Yet one which grace invades
With incarnate revelation
The dawning of the day


The rest of the poems from Rusten Harris’s Advent series on Moss Kingdom:
IncarnationChristmas EveKingsSome Kind of GloryChainsGiftsQuotidian CoupleA Thousand LightsEve & MaryTreasured UpChristmasWinter StavesThe GloriasCherubimJosephStrange RedeemerWombMagiTemple TroughAdventLord’s DayFar as the Curse is FoundJubileeThe Massacre of the InnocentsLiturgical Time

Other Advent poems on Moss Kingdom:

December 21: an Advent poem for the Winter SolsticeOf Edmund and AslanTiptoe HopeThe Second Coming by William Butler Yeats