For Adventia, day 4 I submit a poem I composed a few years ago. Rough around the edges perhaps, but I hope it scratches at the surface enough to help us find place in our Advent journey all the same. May the angst, ambivalence, austerity, and frustration of waiting be rewarded in our common longing for the coming Light.

We Wait

Too many moons after too many suns and still –

we wait.

To arise to yet another day with no sight of promised end –

we wait.

My great, great, great grandparents told this same tale. Still –

we wait.

My great, great, great grandchildren, will they tell this same tale?

We wait.

For once pliable, elastic, hope-filled words, spoken from that creepy prophet guy –

we wait.

In hopscotch rhymes, coffee table books, Sunday paper riddles –

we wait.

Faithless ones mock. Faithful ones pretend to believe. Seeking ones struggle to hope –

we wait.

Stuck. In stasis. Solitary, floating in an endless ocean of shark infested water –

we wait.

Nine-year-old boys sneak their umpteenth grab of dinner being prepared a year after lunch –

we wait.

We’ve long ago forgotten or even care about what we were waiting for –

we wait.

Will we even know when the waiting is over?

Still,

we wait…