Waiting - a poem for Advent

Waiting

I

What are we waiting for? I'd like to know -

But time can never twist to let us see.

And if it could the image it would show

Would involve a changed and different me

Despite the strand that links me to the child

Who knew so much about this present man,

Who shared those feelings when his mother smiled,

That me who screamed with shock when life began.

My child self knew this eagerness to learn

What life would hold, what mysteries would unfold.

He shared this sense of wonder and, in turn,

Our strand links me to myself grown old.

What we are waiting for will come to pass:

The string held taut will snap and twist at last.

II

‘What will be will be' sounds far too glib

But cannot be denied. It holds that fate

Will take its course, just as a doodler's nib

Might swerve and swirl, cross-hatch and gyrate

Until its random pattern will reveal

Nothing of any meaning but a scrawl,

And even he who holds the pen will feel

As if no mind controls the nib at all.

What marks will flow from any tube of ink

Were always bound to - it is simply fate:

Thus we might scribble or craft what we think,

Let ourselves drift or try to navigate.

Lost sailors in the swell of circumstance

Praying that will is the tiller of chance.

III

And, as the pen meanders down the page

My childish self survives amid the scrawl

Reviving many things that fade with age:

So, weakening fears and mysteries that enthral

Vibrate along the tightening strand like notes

That counterpoint the clamour of the day -

A haunting, almost plaintive song that floats

Above the storm yet will not fade away.

What are we waiting for? What harmony

Or pattern will emerge from all that noise

To drown the chordless, sad cacophony

And signify those things that death destroys?

We wait in hope for one revealing light -

A star to shine and guide us through the night.