Advent Visitation

Even from the cabin window I sensed the wind’s

Contagion begin to infect the rags of leaves

Then the alders gilded to it, obeisant, the way

Angels are said to bow, covering their faces with

Their wings, not solemn, as we suppose, but

Possessed of a sudden, surreptitious hilarity.

When the little satin wind arrived,

I felt it slide through the cracked-open door

(A wisp of prescience? A change in the weather?).

and after the small push of breath – You

entering with your air of radiant surprise,

I the astonished one.

These still December mornings

I fancy I live in a clear envelope of angels

Like a cellophane womb. Or a soap bubble,

the colors drifting, curling. Outside

everything’s tinted rose, grape turquoise

silver – the stones by the path, the skin of the sun

on the pond ice, at night the aureola of

a pregnant moon, like me, iridescent

almost full-term with light.

-Luci Shaw

Stephanie Nadeau

Untitled

2009

Graphite on Paper

contributed by Shari-Anne