Poetry list, Advent
Dare to stop
Stop!
Look? Listen? No –
Wait!
Advent is the time of waiting.
We rarely choose it
for waiting teaches us
we are subject to time.
We invent the clock,
the measure
but the power is beyond us.
Time embodies mystery
and brings change
with glimpses of memory and expectation.
Stop and we might experience the beyond.
Advent is the threshold of God’s coming in time.
Am I too busy and important to stop?
It is control and complacency that
corrode our souls and darken the glimpse of glory.
The journey of wonder lies in the waiting;
we reach Bethlehem by stopping.
Even a heartbeat can drown out
the song of the angels.
Stop.
Think too much
and the world floods back in.
The everything of God
is born in the poverty
of Bethlehem and me.
Empty is
the altar;
the manger;
the cross
– until He comes.
© Neil Thompson 2018