Today we feature two poems. MaryAnn writes: “Last December I decided to write a series of poems inspired by beloved Advent and Christmas hymns. It was a great spiritual discipline for me in the midst of the busyness of the season. I remember sitting with a cup of cocoa and the Presbyterian Hymnal, reading carefully the hymns that we (ok, I) often sing without absorbing the words. The images are a rich treasure for the spiritual and poetic imagination.”
May Christ be born anew in you this Christmastide!
inspired by “The First Noel”
they looked up, and saw a star shining
in the east
beyond them
far—
it hung fat in the sky
and taunted them for days.
when they moved, it slid alongside,
when they stopped and turned, it halted too
and winked like an idiot.
no-
eloquence
in its message: approach.
no-
elegance
in their response: buzz off,
swatting it;
but a few sighed:
all right.
we’ll go that way,
just to get you
off our backs.
so they turned, faced off with the light,
and walked a lingering day and night,
but the further they traveled, the more the beckoning star
remained far,
far beyond them.
inspired by “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” verse 2
the heavenly music floats high, high enough
to catch sunlight,
its pure white patches—
distant through naked trees—
puffed and fat with trumpets,
or combed into pianissimo wisps.
and it came to pass
that the weary world reached up,
snagged the misty amens,
clutched them close
until puffs of angel song
pooled in the valleys of chill,
got tangled in gnarled branches
making the weary wonderful,
a suburb sublime.
you couldn’t see the fog all around you
but you knew you must be in it
because it rested like a lead apron, a comfort
as you gulped down each damp chord
thinking yes, this is what we begged for.
MaryAnn McKibben Dana is a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). She is a 2003 graduate of Columbia Theological Seminary in Dacatur, GA and now serves a church outside Washington DC as associate pastor. A poet and writer, her work has appeared in Finding Calm in the Chaos: Christian Devotions for Busy Women, LiteraryMama, mamazine, and the Journal for Preachers. She is currently writing a monthly column for Presbyterians Today and is Christ and Creativity editor for Fidelia’s Sisters. MaryAnn is married to Robert Dana and they have two daughters, Caroline and Meg, with a newborn son, James. When she’s not fretting over how to handle three children under the age of five, she likes to knit splendidly imperfect and misshapen projects.
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