Advent Poetry by Laura Fissel

"The Longing"

weary we are
weary
of fighting and not knowing
why
of feeling unsafe
and the uselessness of protecting self
of filling a want that cannot be
filled
of forfeiting hope
of forfeiting hope
of fretting though it adds no one
minute
of folly that is attached to our
bones
of forcing and being forced
of forcing and being forced
we want to feel our worth
our purpose our reason
why
our soul longs to feel its worth
and be satisfied

"Humility"

purposefully chosen
a town of little
repute
a lowly manger
bedding of hay licked by
oxen
settled in a donkey's stomach
who nibbled as he looked on
shepherd, a courtroom
never to see, such was their
repute
unlikely heralds of a king
who wailed into the world
arrived in birth
and blood
and slick with the love of a mother
the son of a carpenter
destined to live with rough
hands
to work wood into beauty
destined to live with rough
people
to work souls into beauty
to leave a predictable planet
as he entered
blood and violence
to turn Earth on its axis
with the reeling reality
of Love

"The Greatest Paradox"

you are small
every part of you is the tiniest
miniature of the future model
each vein, each flowing artery
pulsing with the substance we here call
blood
is fragile
and could be snapped
rent apart
so easily
your soft self
rising and falling just barely
with the whisper of breath
seems barely real, barely living
the pink skin is stretched
over a perfect frame
bones that protectively cage a
little pumping heart
and heaving lungs, proudly puffing out
and sighing back again
and again
your muscles inexpertly
contract, flex, stretch
kicking out your feet, curling teeny fingers with soft peach nails
practicing, exploring
muscles and bones that will grow
to be torn
to be broken
for blood to break through your skin binding
to rush out of those doors
and stain the ground, making it holy
staining me, making me holy