Waiting For Advent, 2013 - Almost The First Poems I Wrote

30th November 2013.  Nearly six months after admitting the truth to myself and to another that I am transgender - a word I didn't even know when I began to accept myself.

I was still a very enthusiastic Christian then and had found safety with Northern Lights MCC, a church here in Newcastle.  On that day the church held a creativity day and in a time of stillness we sat before our God and reflected, waiting for the beginning of Advent.

While we sat I opened up an empty notebook I'd been carrying for months and I wrote.  These are almost the first poems I'd written for many years.  I can't recall having written a poem before then, not since writing a sonnet to a girlfriend in early 1994 because she asked for one and then being dumped about an hour later.

These are not good poems though the latter could still stand perfectly well as a liturgical litany.

The first is not just not good.  It's bad!  That's not important.  What's important is that if we want to write we should and we shouldn't worry too much about the quality of what we write.  If we keep writing our words will flow with more freedom and style.  We'll always be learning and playing with our language and while we learn we can be liberated by letting out what would otherwise be trapped within.

I'm not a Christian now.  I hope that I am at least a slightly better writer.


The Afternoon before Advent

(St Martin's Chapel, Byker, in the stillness, the advent wreath prepared but cold.  To be read at my slow, chew-on-words pace)

Candles, dimmed,
Blackened wicks,
Standing proud, yet dead.
We wait for life, for fire
For the dull tool to become beacon,
For darkness, invisible in the dark
To be darkness, intangible in the light.
For bare sticks of wax, waiting, waiting
To signify your light, heat, triumph.

You came. The light was lit.
Prophets sang. The light was lit.
A yes was spoken. Be it done to me.
The light was lit. Darkness forced back.

Candles, lit, you came, you remain,
Come, come again, again, come again.
Light us, symbols of you
Not to reveal darkness but to be light
You, great light of the world
We, your lights for the world.

But, for today, candles, dimmed.
No defeat. Just expectation.
Light will come. You will come.
And in light, all will be lit,
All will be well.

Advent

Come to me risen one,
Come as you came before:
   To the poor, wrapped in poverty;
   To the lost, beyond sight of the found.

Come to me risen one,
Come as you came before:
   That my potential, still in the womb,
   May birth, grow, ascend in you.

Come to me risen one,
Come as you came before:
   You, discovered, truth in human flesh,
   Reveal the discovery of my wonders.

Come to me risen one,
Come as you came before:
   Born to be self-offering
   Teach me my self, that I may offer.

Come to me risen one,
Come as you came before:
   Godhead in inconsequential circumstance
   Lead me to great consequence in you.

Come to me risen one,
Come as you came before:
   God, creator, helpless, all powerful
   Bless with the weakness of strength.