John Ahern writes,

Advent

So we begin again
digging our fingernails
to pry out tiny lightbulbs
jamming them back in
to make them blink or blue or both.

Warm, stifling air
we joy in
coming from dragons’ mouths
that first must practice with
arctic winds
while we drive home.

And the dead is silent, the innocent -
bright, trampled, muddied here.
And we rush to make new men and angels from it
but fear to disturb the covering over the marriage
of Heaven and earth.

(I’ve taken from Hannah Roorda’s idea of tearing apart one’s own poetry.) I’ll explain this a little bit and what I meant by it all. I was struck once or twice during this most recent Advent season with some of the symbolism. I knew it wasn’t any good to write it all out in dry prose. But I’m not satisfied with it still, especially the last stanza. I want to know what you think of it.

So we begin again….

The first line is simply there to express cyclicality in the Church’s placement of Advent at the beginning of the Church year. Perhaps what I chose to illustrate this new, recurring beginning was a little mundane – putting up Christmas lights in lines 2-5 – but it’s one of those things you do in Advent, that you associate with Advent, and that never seems to get boring (for me, anyhow).

I’m not sure what to do about the repeated “or” in the fifth line. I think maybe it’s a bit excessive to have an “or” between “blink” and “blue” and I can’t think of any reason why to keep it there. I could point out the long “I” assonance in the third line, ahem, but it’s unintentional and accidental, so it really serves no material significance as far as I can tell.

I don’t like participles in poetry – it makes it cliché pseudo-Eliotic, I think. (There are a lot in this poem, so if you can come up with ways out of them, comment.) But “prying” might make more sense that “to pry” in line 3. I’m hoping for some opinion on that one.

Warm, stifling air…

This only works if that’s a universal experience, but I’ve always found one of the most unpleasant things about winter is getting into a car that’s been sitting out in the cold for hours at night, and waiting, waiting, waiting for the warm air to kick in. You can probably sort it out from there.

And the dead is silent, the innocent -
bright….

The first line explains it all, but I’m not sure the first line really works. What’s dead during winter or Advent, you ask? Well, everything. Plants, trees, grass, rocks, dirt, water, and all that. And I’ve noticed that in winter, everything (especially right before it snows) is quiet. The innocent is the snow.

The first line of the third stanza is synecdoche, and I’m not sure it works in this context. Anyway, the “innocent” snow is always very bright, but spoiled by the trampling and muddying. There’s some Christo-centric symbolism here I think, which is part of the reason I wrote the poem.

The cover is snow. One always wants to go out to build snowmen and wriggle around in the snow, but there’s something sacred about the snow that one is afraid to uncover. It seems improper to go and disturb it. Again, there may be some symbolism here that I’ve taken from the Virgins with Lamps and Oil, and Weddings, and all that.

For interest’s sake, I have a versed version here of the first two stanzas. Something arises up in me that kicks against free verse, so from conscience I wrote this (it’s not in meter, necessarily, but it’s syllabic):

So we begin again
our fingernails digging
into tiny lightbuls
to make them blink, blue (or) both.

We joy in stiffling air
from dragons’ mouths that first
awaken arctic winds
this while we’re driving home.

I don’t like at all, but I do like the “awaken” in line 7 more.

*******************

Here are some more haikus I’ve written down on whim.

Moldy pancakes soaked
In syrup, squished together.
It’s cytology.

(Nick suggested “cytology time” for the last line, which I at first thought was corny, but now it’s growing on me.)

*

like plane propellers
shattering my wine goblet
from too much Wagner

(Probably inspired by one of the Tenors. Thanks to Gabrielus who helped me out on this one.)

*

Glory be to God
for my sinus infection
around stinky cheese

*

Women, wittily
vaunt their two X Chromosomes.
Hm. I wonder Y

(Composed for my fellow Biology students, and most especially, MrsH.)