Merry Christmas

Post Author: MaryAnn McKibben Dana

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 Decatur, Georgia, and now serves a church outside Washington D.C. 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.

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.

Image by: freestocks.org
Used with permission