ADVENT
CALENDAR
Wikipedia
defines an Advent calendar thus- An Advent
calendar is a special calendar used
to count or celebrate the days in anticipation of Christmas. Since
the date of the first Sunday of Advent varies, falling between
November 27 and December 3 inclusive, the Advent calendar usually
begins on December 1, although many include the previous few days
that are part of the season. The Advent calendar was first used by
German Lutherans in the 19th and 20th centuries but is now ubiquitous
among adherents of many Christian denominations.
This
Advent calendar was not like the ones in supermarkets in Australia
with chocolates behind the doors, but rather images that glowed if it
was on a window in the day as
the paper backing was thinner than the front. Of
course, in Australia Christmas is in summer. This was
a gift from a lady who had escaped the Nazi's with her Jewish
husband. It was as little like the one in the
illustration. The poem is about time, memory,
meaning and vision.
ADVENT
CALENDAR
So many
years have passed to old
from
long-past time of child
where
wish for free and festive weeks,
beneath
the south-world sun,
came
with the turn to hot December
when
all the year of school was done.
As
inward power,
what's
past is present now
as I
remember
some
many-detailed parts
of such
departed days.
Those
times would start
with
one old advent calendar,
a
European gift,
upon a
window's morning light,
light
bright as summer sight,
its
twenty-five doors shut from lying
beneath
hard books, eleven months below...
its
village street in moon-still snow,
its
river frozen and its church
in
silent prayer to star-deep sky:
a night
of winter-folded world,
apart,
in my imagination,
from
all free summer days' creation.
And I
recall a wonder at each revelation,
each
door I opened with an eager sight
to find
behind an image shining:
an
angel winged with white,
a
large-eyed owl
like
wisdom's sight,
a
sunken treasure in a river,
a
pirate with his cutlass high
and in
a barrel curled
a worm
with spectacles and book.
And
through the opening of each morning,
I found
another pictured nook
until
upon the twenty fourth
came
Father Christmas sweeping through the starry sky.
And on
that final day of child's delight,
upon
that long-awaited dawning,
the
last illumination was
nativity
in summer light.
Though
this is all long lost
in
time's unresting turning,
and
most of its once-glowing scenes
forgotten
in their fullest shine,
I grow
aware of time's rebirth:
how
even smallest things
leave
traces after vanishing,
and
resurrect
in
inner sense;
like
silence that informs
imagination
opening doors,
beyond
the obvious, to other being...
the
secret birth of other light,
and a
sight beyond the outward seeing.
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