Chris McDonnell: Four Haikus for Advent
Haiku is a Japanese poetry structure of seventeen syllables, arranged in three lines. Here are four haikus for Advent set within a brief commentary, Four Advent haikus Advent -1- Fog found Autumn days in chill expectation of the Lord’s Advent Advent in the Northern hemisphere is associated with the onset of winter, frost and dark evenings.it […]
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Haiku is a Japanese poetry structure of seventeen syllables, arranged in three lines.
Here are four haikus for Advent set within a brief commentary,
Four Advent haikus
Advent -1-
Fog found Autumn days
in chill expectation
of the Lord’s Advent
Advent in the Northern hemisphere is associated with the onset of winter, frost and dark evenings.it is the precursor of the mid-winter solstice which was adopted by the western church to celebrate the nativity of the Christ. Advent is a time of preparation.
Advent -2-
Days of waiting
In anticipation of the birth
Of him who comes.
A census was called by Augustus and each family had to return to their own place to be counted. Mary, well on with her pregnancy, travelled with Joseph to their hometown of Bethlehem. It wasn’t an easy journey, Mary on the back of a donkey, led by her husband Joseph.
Advent -3-
Four flames shape my song
that this very earth must sing
fire in the desert.
Distant town house lights fleck the sand and chatter of the travellers fills the air as step by step and week by week the journey is made through difficult country, hoping that they will find somewhere to rest for the night. They are offered straw in the stables sharing with the animals which they gladly accept.
Advent – 4-
Touch again the stones
that your open hands wear smooth
each silent morning.
It is there that the Christ child is born amid the bales of hay, to lay his head on his mother’s breast and cry his first tears of life. Later to be presented in the temple then lost for thirty years till he called a group of men to follow him as they walked the smooth stones of Galilee.
END
