My Advent practice is almost over. Choosing a poem from the AdventWord of the day has been…well….a wordy way to prepare for the coming of the Word made flesh. Some days the choice of poem has been easy. Other days I’ve really had to hunt for words that resonate.
My family was talking last night about how this frustrating year has felt like it just slipped by, and we are mostly glad to be rid of it. Though we’ve had some significant moments and changes, none of us think-hope-wish that 2021 will be one that stands out. Perhaps we are fortunate in that way. As we watched 20-year-old home movies last night it occurred me how much I have forgotten about other past years. Some I was glad to see come to an end. Others were sweet in retrospect. Many I let slip by too fast without stopping to mark the moments and people and gifts that made them come alive.
Today’s AdventWord is MAGNIFY. As another pandemic year comes to a close, I found a poem by Jane Hirshfield that captures a bit of the way I feel.
What’s in your vest pockets?
a poetry prompt
Vest —by Jane Hirshfield I put on again the vest of many pockets. It is easy to forget which holds the reading glasses, which the small pen, which the house keys, the compass and whistle, the passport. To forget at last for weeks even the pocket holding the day of digging a place for my sister’s ashes, the one holding the day where someone will soon enough put my own. To misplace the pocket of touching the walls at Auschwitz would seem impossible. It is not. To misplace, for a decade, the pocket of tears. I rummage and rummage— transfers for Munich, for Melbourne, to Oslo. A receipt for a Singapore kopi. A device holding music: Bach, Garcia, Richter, Porter, Pärt. A woman long dead now gave me, when I told her I could not sing, a kazoo. Now in a pocket. Somewhere, a pocket holding a Steinway. Somewhere, a pocket holding a packet of salt. Borgesian vest, Oxford English Dictionary vest with a magnifying glass tucked inside one snapped-closed pocket, Wikipedia vest, Rosetta vest, Enigma vest of decoding, how is it one person can carry your weight for a lifetime, one person slip into your open arms for a lifetime? Who was given the world, and hunted for tissues, for chapstick.
