The year descends,
drops behind the moon,
cold in the night and aflame
with stars.

Now we warm ourselves
with ancient stories of stars
on the move, not contained
by powers or tribes, crossing borders.

There was a first Advent — against the odds.
It was promised. We believed
so fervently we did not see the One
who came, crossing borders without a sound.

It's not that certainty is wrong,
but there is imagination. And hope.
Everything else is blind experience
or gossip.

There is a wilderness
inside us, a desert wilderness.
Promises as cold as contracts,
despair feeding the cosseted self.

Hope burns. In the last age
it flames up against the wind,
fuels the Advent promise,
the one yet to come.