In honor of Advent beginning tomorrow, here’s the first of three poems which suit the season’s wait, reflection, and glory.
“What the Body Knows”
by Jean Janzen (from What the Body Knows)
Maybe it's the ocean's rhythmic tug that helps me sleep, my body's own surge remembering its deepest pulse. Think of those Celtic monks who scaled the slippery rocks carrying vellum and inks while the sea broke and battered beneath them. High in a crevice, a hidden stone hut with cot and candle. The scribe dips and swirls his quill to preserve the story—Luke's genealogy, name after name, letters shaped like birds in every color, a flight of messengers released into history. Each word unfurls the promise, like Gabriel kneeling. The body knows that wings, like waves, can break through walls and enter, that the secret of the story is love, that even as we sleep, its tides carry us in wild safety.
"What the Body Knows"