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| Photo: Snowberries, Jacqueline Durban |
Maggie Jackson began writing Advent poetry as a way to focus on the deeper meaning of the season and to not become drawn into the ever-increasing commercialism of Christmas; a poem a day reflecting on happenings in her own life, events in the news, and daily Bible readings.
I have chosen two of her poems to share and love how beautifully nature weaves through her words in a way that is by turns bleak and warming, much like the season of Advent itself.
ADVENT by Maggie Jackson
Wednesday, December 2nd
Red roses
late pruned
watched by
redwing who
eats
bright rowan
berries
Votes are cast for bombs
words are hurled in
Westminster
‘sorry’ is not one
People are hungry
loaves and fishes
feed the crowd
seven baskets full
Matthew 15:29-37
Sunday, November 29th
It was the wildest of days.
Gales and torrents of rain.
The road turned to river.
No-one passed by.
The rowan flung down the
last of its berries.
I kept watch all morning,
straining to hear the clunk
of the rusting latch and
footsteps running to the door,
the family arriving
in spite of the storm.
I kept watch all day,
hearing only the screaming wind.
Yet no-one passed by,
no-one sought shelter.
Had I got the wrong day, or time?
Was it all too late, or too soon?
I had kept watch all year.
Too much to hope for, perhaps,
that the travellers should stop here.
But, as I turned from the window,
a blackbird perched on
the gate-post, unruffled
by the storm, so still,
as if carved from stone,
waiting, guarding the path,
ready to greet with song
the bearers of the fledgling God
who chooses to enter my home.
Maggie Jackson
Find more of Maggie Jackson's Advent poetry at www.livingspirit.org.uk
Two lovely peons. Thank you.
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