Advent
Patrick Kavanagh is one of Ireland's brilliant poets. If you haven't read him, please drop everything and begin.
This poem about the meaning and power of Advent and the illumination of Christ is one of the most beautiful and poignant pieces I've ever encountered about the coming of the light of Christ. Read it several times over several days. And let such phrases as "Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder" and "Wherever life pours ordinary plenty" sink into you like a stone to the bottom of a clear pool. Let these Advent thoughts rest deep in your soul that is being readied to receive them.
—Kirk Webb, Director of The Celtic Center
Advent
by Patrick Kavanagh
We have tested and tasted too much, lover-
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child's soul, we'll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.
And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.
O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching
For the difference that sets an old phrase burning-
We'll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning
Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.
And we'll hear it among decent men too
Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,
Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
Won't we be rich, my love and I, and
God we shall not ask for reason's payment,
The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges
Nor analyse God's breath in common statement.
We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour-
And Christ comes with a January flower.