"The Waiting Season"
the groaning time,
where seconds fall dead
from tired trees.
This is the moaning season,
the waiting season,
where dreams blow down
sickened streets,
and hopes are heaped
awaiting entombment
in black plastic bags destined
for the metastasizing landfill
haunting the edge of town.
Nothing good can come of this.
Nothing good can come from this.
Possibility is burning in the dumpster fire,
the smoke filling the gap
between my 8:00 and my 9:30 appointments
as I stand scrolling TikTok
in the zombie line at Starbucks.
Tick Tok Tick Tok Tick Tock
goes the clock
counting down to the darkness
as the ashes pile up like snow.
///
In Advent poems I've written in the past, I've tended to place myself in the experience of Israel's exile. In this poem I was trying to get into the experience of exile in our time and place, channeling my inner T.S. Eliot and "The Waste Land."
The point isn't to be grim and existential during Advent as ends in themselves. Although I can be grim and existential. Sometimes I do feel that our dreams blow down sickened streets. The point of dwelling on exilic themes during Advent is, rather, to cultivate a contrast with Christmas Day, where the birth of Jesus comes to us as Unexpected Explosive Surprise. You're standing like a zombie in a Starbucks line, scrolling through social media for the millionth time. The death-ashes of the modern world pile up around you like a snowdrift. And then, out of nowhere...news. And a new world is born.
Let me say it this way: if you're not experiencing the sheer relief of Christmas on December 25, you've been missing a critical element of Advent.
