INTO THE SEASON

poetry by Harvey S. Mozolak

 

to the altar of God, in his youth

how is the entrance found

to the event of this season

will there be tracks in the snow

a lamp post to mark another world

we may enter

through the woods of a wooden nave?

the scent of cut pine

encircles us as we gather

family

church and shoppers

to select some ornamentation

taste some mull of sentiment

and open a calendar’s door

as we journey the time

wrapping our hopes in thin as skin

colored papers

decorating dreams strung like garland

lighted against the sun’s distance

ever toward the altar

hayed with holiness

coming to us

we meet another

vested as a sweet child

on the sour soiled floor of a barn

that is our chancel

 

uninsulated

it is the time of year

we become disconnected

from the light

and from its growth

we winter in ourselves

in the season of its cold

burrow in blessings we store

for warmth

a time to cut trees so they will never

evergreen again

and electrify them weakly

with the gaudy that is currently power

watch

don’t trip over the cord

bellied on its trip south

to Bethlehem

 

OLD WITNESS

unnumbered Isaiah

the heat of heaven

searing the cold of earth

bubbling oceans

returning rivers to their wells

moving mountains down their sides

in granite become liquid laughter

lighting the tops of forests

as though they were candles

marking eternity’s birth

wound the air

slice our space in time

and come down

among the leaves of late November

a filthy cloth

dirty from wiping the undersides

with the wind

reach down and cleanse

with your face

“the hands of our iniquity “

in dismal December’s divine delight

 

wound the air

slice our space in time

and come down

 

a clump of clay

fat of earth’s appetite to be

its own gorgeous self-gorging altar

remake our muddy path

footprints pointed awry 

steps of our ribs to a torn heart

the summit of our skull

conquered by the flag of the enemy

let your fingers reform

our terra cotta colors

with the red of the infant’s blood

 

wound the air

slice our space in time

and come down

 

BLUE IS A FOUR LETTER WORD

Advent 1 (Mark 13. 24-37)

blue light special

the sol bright eye blackened

the moon embarrassed

at the loss occludes

stars we search for falling

all come down

as if a giant power cord

is unplugged

in the shaking of the heavens

 

when the one of the promise comes

clouds mushrooming in power

about his entrance

angels like shafts of radiance

to all directions

even inward to the heart

 

stand at the door and await

the winter wind to pass

the tender leaves to offer

spring’s tree for summer

in the light that awakes

and connects

 

Advent 2 (Mark 1. 1-8)

banking on the Jordan John

you can wear a bushy white wig and beard

bright red pajamas

and a broad black shiny leather belt

over a pillow stuffed into your underwear

and not be considered strange this month

 

or odd if you order something with legs

and antennae broiled or grilled as long

as it is done with garlic

and has a French name on the menu

 

yet his is noticed

as incorrect and abnormal

clothed with apartness

camel hair and goat hide

 

stooping down to tie the shoes of a child

with honey-sticky hands

someone too elderly to bend well

stung repeatedly by disjointing pain

or too polished for cleaning missteps

arched in animal dung and human error

 

there he washes

points with a dripping finger

smoothes the mud, sand and souls

of the pathless

the powerless and unspirited

with wild Holiness

 

Advent 3 (John 1. 6-8, 19-28)

lumen

carrying light

palms a lamped cup

finger filaments pointing

to the splintering shafts from beyond

lit near and showing the way

the tongue a wick of words

proclaiming the beam

and the burning

 

lucerna

sandal thong

loose trailing

a wick waiting to burn

on the way

from the wilderness

and its water

toward the city

and the hill

where attachments

are all untied

and witnesses

stumble over the truth

tears

I am not

Their only baptism

 

Advent 4 (Luke 12. 26-38)

greeting of Gabriel

sent by God

angelic courage

posted to a small outpost

of humanity this young child

unwed but engaged

to a carpenter

 

the God who made

the house of David

hero of  heaven’s holiness

at the closed door

announcing the divine entrance

of favor and withness

hail that promises dew

without her doing

Lord

she bows in fear

as serene  the Son 

her peace

crosses the threshold

never before known or needed

into a mother seeded

 

she will name him Yah-saves

great throned

over an endless realm

begun by the Most High

passing over a shadow

of things to come

 

here

I hear

your word with me

 

in reverence the angel

leaves his Lord

the presence now

no longer beyond conception

Harvey S. Mozolak is the pastor of St. Stephen Lutheran Church in Scott Township, near Pittsburgh, PA