Hosted by Randy Smit and Rhonda Edgington
This month we are blessed to have contrasting Advent pieces by two poets who are no strangers to Hope Church or our Poetry Corner. While circling around similar themes, it’s fascinating to see how differently Randy and Francis approach their subject matter. Perhaps one or the other will speak more to you, or maybe they will each each touch a different place inside you.
I will also take this opportunity to draw your attention to the still-new live Poetry Corner, which has taken up residence in the Gathering Area, between the Library shelves and the office window. We plan (approximately monthly) to feature a poem that has been brought to our attention by other poetry-loving members of Hope Church. November’s selection was added to our Poetry Hat last spring, and seems appropriate for this month of darkness and cold.
-Rhonda
Each autumn it seems there comes a moment when I’ll get out to be with nature on a walk down the bike path and I’ll get that cold blast straight off the lake – and it’s a crabby angry cold broken howling frozen force pressing, it seems, straight against me. I’ll routinely have the same thought fly into my head: What did I do to you? Fierce nature, the many ministries of “her” way with mortals that are less than tender and gentle, does its own work all in the fullness of time. If you are alive in this creation, I say, it’s all personal; and not without its splendid awakenings from gloom to glory.
-Randy
INTO LATE NOVEMBER
by Randy Smit
Torn wind, trees thrown round holler and howl the dunes
down in a rush at the ravens startled cry: Why, Why?
Outside there is fullness in a black night without stars.
If I am not, before I dress, a love of the night, an empty and
a native prayer, I haven’t a wonder, a way.
Which is why of her Holy feet today, (play the wooden flute, her courses)
wild turkeys these and I have only left this dream, unless next
day some glimmer of diamond light may touch a stream
at its moldering edges with gusty nudges, while the
laurels smile to the dawn pure in thorn and snowdrop.
Stop, I say Wait – again, too soon deep snows at purple dusk will blow,
northern drums thunder and sound on, ‘til pressed from vacancy
a deeper ground yearns toward a brighter star, behind the gale
the spark ignites and sets aglow the new and ancient trail
feathered heralds fly some
miles abroad: Love shall prevail.
Prepare the way, prepare the way.
This Advent hymn (to the tune of “Halifax” if you wish to sing it) asks us to remember the coming of the Christ, imagining ourselves in the plight of those still waiting for the coming, honestly confronting how we and the world are, and hoping for the many gifts Christ’s coming brings if we are open to Them.
Advent Hymn
by Francis Fike (taken from his 2019 publication, Dune Tracks)
In darkness baffled, we are lost,
And wander in the night,
All of our paths are evil-crossed.
Come to us, Lord of Light,
For here we stumble and despair
Left to our strength alone.
Sorrow and failure everywhere
Now chill us to the bone.
The winter night is long and cold
And darker than a tomb,
But not as dark as hearts that hold
For you no vacant room.
The darkness deepens, and the night
Surrounds us: where is dawn?
Come to us, Lord of lasting Light;
Our feeble flame is gone.
Taught by the prophet’s joyful Word,
We bide a savior’s birth.
Prepare us for your coming, Lord,
To this, the fallen earth.
Come to the terror-troubled land
Where always war draws near
And evil spreads on every hand
Its ministries of fear.
Thaw out the nearly frozen heart
With warm, incarnate love;
Reveal your precious healing art
In flight of Holy Dove,
And bring to all the weary earth
The power to love and cope;
To us upon your day of birth
Bring joy and peace and hope.