Advent Again – day 13

“we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home…”

from “One Today” by Richard Blanco

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn’t give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country—all of us—
facing the stars
hope—a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it—together.

starsgavin

Untitled by Gavin Jantjes

 

Advent Again – day 12

not slow, but making space for all to change…

movement-in-kind-by-matthew-whitney

“Movement in Kind” by Matthew Whitney

from “A Change of Maps” by Carolyne Wright

 

Above us, satellites measure the drift

of continents, dissolving vows

of bedrock, offshore shelves conceding

 

all their striations to the sea.

They track the moon’s loosening orbit,

explorer shuttle homing in

with batteries of data, micro-

 

chips shrinking our wildest dreams.

We roll up the old cartographies

coordinates overlaid with newer,

more transparent certainties

 

in the subatomic shadows’ glare.

Where now? we want to know of landscape –

houses and poplars and children the maps

and master planners have no idea of.

 

Our arrival will coincide with the true

colors of our going. We look

both ways for distances that shift

their bearings in our favor.