Prospects for Advent

Fiery sunrise, the morning warbler, rose e're blooming,

Telling it on the mountain, suddenly

Dismayed by the blues of a wailing trumpet.

Looking for green shoots,  we see only a stump,

Listening for reconciliation, only discord.

How can we sing the Lord's song,

Bleak harmonies in a strange land?

Can cacophony ring-in the kingdom?

Through the roadside mailbox installed

To accept the chaff with the wheat?

Through the grafting of one writer's hopes

Onto the welcoming page of another?

Through the maximum security's drama coach,

Cajoling the inmates to live as Prospero,

Not the manacled Caliban,

Or through the plaintive, soaring soprano's

Resonant Pie Jesu?

The Advent of the cosmic Christ,

Born Jesus,

Improbably,

In our hearts.

Bill Tucker

Helen Keller, no. 8 (detail), 1904, Whitman Studio, The Helen Keller Foundation; colorist, Jared Enos.