Poems for Advent

                In a Manger

Still falls the night

as the snow like down

blankets the land, hushed 

Under our puffs

we awaken to plough the drifts

to a barn stabling

a cradle for Emmanuel.

        An Epiphany                             

That lanky, pimpled boy

                               in the back seat by the window

                               could never write a poem. 

                               Later, after dismissing

                               my pupils’ verses frozen

                               in form like ice cubes

                               I read the boy’s poem:

                               I don’t like poetry.

                               I’d sooner be out every evening

                               kicking my soccer ball against the garage door.

                               I race with the setting sun                           

                               hanging on the horizon

                               like an orange.

                               The madder I get, the harder I kick,

                               until the ball becomes my pillow.

                               As I lie, panting and sweating,

                               the sun silhouettes the spruce.

 The Word Becomes Flesh

 I enter and approach the receptionist, her hair pierced with knitting needles. “I’d like to visit Jerry C.,” I say as she trims her bleeding nails.

 “Oh, you mean Jeremiah!” she mocks. “He fell down an abandoned well, so the nurses secured him in the old building.”

 I trudge up the steps, knock, and an attendant in immaculate white appears, his keys and a crucifix jingle on a chain.

 “I’d like to take Jerry C. for a drive,” I ask, as I gaze at the white gifts beneath the tree; out steps Jerry his hair caressing his shoulders, his leather jacket torn, wrapping him like a robe.

 Later, driving over the bridge, I mention, “I teach your best friend, John.”

 “Oh?” Jerry says rolling an Ogden’s. “My father is taking me home this Christmas in his Chrysler.”

  Back at the hospital, Jerry butts his cigarette on his hand, jumps

  from my car, shouting “If you’re ever out here, I’ll come and visit you!”

  The wind hovers over him; he slams the door shut, passes the creche, and the ECT (Electroconvulsive therapy) room where he’ll be in the morning.

  The First Hour   

  The garbage bin somersaults into an idling truck,

  lands with a bang.

  Up the road a snowblower blows a drift into a field.

  I rise to ponder with Mary

  the Word, while the sun peeking over the stable

  anoints the land.              

  Bernard Callaghan

  bandscall@eastlink.ca