Advent's Fourth Candle - A Cinquain

Flickering

candles of

Hope, Peace, Joy

flourish when joined by

Love

©2010 Twylla Alexander

Sunset Surprise

Radiant reds, pinks

Fill the sky as we ski home.

Wake up! grateful heart

Haiku © 2010 Mary Toland

Printed with permission

                                        Photo by Randy Lincks
                                         

                                            

Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem

 by Maya Angelou
(selected lines)

We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.
Peace.
Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you, to stay a while with us.
So we may learn by your shimmering light
How to look beyond complexion and see community.


(click for complete poem)

Graphic by Monny's

There is a Place Beyond Ambition

When the flute players
couldn’t think of what to say next

they laid down their pipes,
then they lay down themselves
beside the river

and just listened.
Some of them, after awhile,
jumped up
and disappeared back inside the busy town.
But the rest —
so quiet, not even thoughtful —
are still there,

still listening.

by Mary Oliver
published in Red Bird, Beacon Press

                                              Photo by Stephane Therrien

The Light Within

 ©2010 Twylla Alexander

The flame awakens to the familiar touch,

stretches, breathes, quietens.

The woman sits nearby
with her book,

open to Advent writings.

Today
she does not read.

She stares
into her companion’s face;

Its thoughts
held in shadow.

“Dear Flame, you hear the words I repeat,

the prayers,

the Promise given

year after year.

Yet I remain the same,

waiting to be changed.

Have you no wisdom for me?”

She bows her head.

Needles scratch a frosted pane.

Chill slips through tired cracks

as a rude wind pushes past.

Ticks follow tocks,

in perfect step.

in perfect step.

The flame leans forward.

“That for which you wait is

within you, and in all.”

She lifts her head,

takes in
the Light. 

                                             Photo by Twylla Alexander


Note:  The next posting will be on December 16.  I will be in route from Russia to the U.S. on the 15th.