Seasonal Shifts
Seasonal shifts of intention
Rise like wind-currents over snow:
You feel them before you see the rising
swirl of flakes flooding sight with cold determination.
Swaying to a beat from a distant star,
I see a convoy of creatures, ear bent,
heart-tuned to rhythms shy of malleus, incus, stapes.
Moving from silent stirrings of heart,
they lean toward sounds and sights yet unheard, unseen.
Hooves noiselessly sink into dessert sand.
Exhaustion stills tongues.
Even the night breeze has dropped like a
stone.
Only the Child within hears the roar of Spirit-air
rising, readying to rush into fresh lungs;
Only the Child within hears the singing
of stars, and angels discharging like firecrackers into the atmosphere.
The bones and heart—those ancient
bedfellows of knowing—sense the shift long before the mind knows to surrender
to it.
Body wisdom, old as Methuselah, rises and
runs to Light, where eternal spirit and resurrected body kiss.
There is glory in the aged landscape of a
handful of clay held at the beginning of human time. The prophets knew this and
so they sang their signs.
Earth seasons know this: rumbling chants
of Creation and Christmas in the unfolding of leaves and bursting of berries,
the tumble of new lambs, and flutter of wise wings.
The Son rises soft. We feel the rush of
Wind before we feel it. Know it in our heart-bones before mind clears
and turns in anticipation of it.
Such love—a tidal wave of kindness,
peace, joy as ocean-deep as it is star-tall drowning discontent and dredging arteries
to new vistas.
Spirit runs radiant, over-turning sense,
squabbles, and sanctimony.
Angels and shepherds, forever etched as the
quintessential Christmas mob, race rampant over a startled town.
The Child. Oh, the Child is born.
