Advent Psalm (126)

Weary and sleepless,
caught off guard by
racing pulse, panic, vertigo;
rare reprieve to breathe,
palpable lostness.

Heading for home,
down old Highway 6 through tears,
Aberfoyle, Puslinch, Clappison’s Corners,
steering south on automatic pilot,
college kid’s stick-shift Jetta.

Over Skyway Bridge,
past belching steelwork ugliness,
along escarpment’s familiar lines;
angled off-ramp deceleration
toward welcoming place.

Swinging door, hinged open heart,
glistening eyes, wet cheeks,
arms of wide understanding,
one who’s been there,
no solutions pressed…

Poetic banalities skim along
with artless misconception
resisting joy’s postponement.
Prosaic homecomings stumble
against hard edges of reality.

Prayerful longing in dispossession,
grief’s tossing and turning,
dry riverbed, exilic anguish;
through a glass dimly,
orientation to impossible future:

Like those who dream,
sweet unconcern of laughter,
enlivening water rushing.

Not here, not now,
apprehension in body, mind.
Sitting together in the living room.