Waiting—An Advent Poem

Waiting
for the promised seed,
dropped
into a cove of hungry earth.
Waiting 40 days and 40 years
for the tree of Jesse,
the branch of David.
Noah’s olive sprig to return, again,
as Christmas fruit,
rinsed in Jordan,
peeled by Pilate,
5,000 fed, then
sealed in a cove of stony earth.

Waiting
for the promised seed,
lifted
into wrappings of opaque clouds.
Waiting, with lamps of oil burning,
for a shoot from the stock of Jesse,
whose roots reach to the river.
Noah’s olive sprig to return, again,
on a white horse
whose rider is called Faithful and True.
Waiting

for clouds to unwrap.
Waiting.

—Brett VanTol © CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Used by permission.