"What will we find there?"

Tell me again
why I am standing in a bitter wind
sand flying all over
and around me


trying to fasten a saddle
on this stubborn camel
trying to keep my goods
from being lost to the desert.


Best robes and turbans
packed and still I wonder
will I really need them
where I am going,


off on some journey
where I am not sure of
what is to be found...
or whom?


There was the dream,
there was the voice that
well, seemed to speak
with such authority,


with such crystal clarity
I could not help myself
but move with purpose
to follow, of all things...


A star, immense,
stunningly bright
the effulgence of which
never have I seen.


Across the open dunes
we wonder, what is beneath
that star...
What will we find there,


some miracle, some treasure
a fortune teller, a prince?
Too early to tell
So we wait...


Wondering...

Catherine+

Photos courtesy of:
travissher.com, openstock photo, library.thinkquest.org

He draws nigh...

We draw closer to the time when that earthbound Star arrived so long ago, that our breath sometimes catches in the awe of it, and the One who let it come to us. Luci Shaw wrote the poem you are about to read and I found it by way of British university chaplain Maggi Dawn. It is one of my especial favorites about this time of year, about this season and why it yields such shy majesty.

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest .
you who have had so far to come.)
Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly.
Quiet he lies whose vigor hurled a universe.
He sleeps whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world.
Charmed by doves' voices, the whisper of straw,
he dreams, hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed who overflowed all skies,
all years. Older than eternity, now he is new.
Now native to earth as I am, nailed to my poor planet,
caught that I might be free, blind in my womb
to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.

_______________________________________________

Catherine+