Advent Poems

Five Christmas gifts follow: a sampling of the twenty-four poems I wrote--one each day--for this Advent. Starting with the stocking stuffer . . . .

Harbor hopes as big as ships

equipped to cross worlds.

*

Fog rests in the forest, hiding

a world between grass and branches—

a world so soft and molecular

that breath would end it.

Once I was invited to a back room.

A man opened a drawer, then a box.

Then a folio with a spine thick as my fist.

He opened to a page illumined in gold leaf.

I could see my face in the burnished

brightness limning a birth.

I leaned over it, “Oh . . .”

The man shook his head.

That brilliance I could dull by breath.

Oh, fragility kept pressed

behind pages, boards, box, drawer

robbed of light. How can such beauty

shine if not exposed to the elements

that could destroy it?

How like its subject, deity turned

mortal to show us light.

Walk in this winter.

Wave your arms and holler

until you see your own breath.

*

Inspired by a vision of a ship’s figurehead turning outside in, as if she were looking to see if she had a heart.

My ship points inward

like a sleeve stuck

inside a shirt. Any

limb will reach core.

My cargo is heart,

heaven. The weight

so light, it almost

flies, this vessel.

Yes. See beneath me?

Stars. Here I plot

course, planetless.

Orbit with me. Hold

the north-pointing compass.

Tell me when it’ll be

to bright to read,

then kiss me with sleep.

I wake, seams back

inside, sleeves filled

with reasonable arms

holding reasonable things:

A bowl of stars

as souvenirs.

*

Inspired by the Celtic belief of “thin places,” where the veil is thinner between this world and the next

Love, sweet alias for the world

we wish to see, come rest

on our heads, close as hair.

Be the reason for the scalp’s

work—to grow strands that lift

with the physics of angels.

Love, watch the hair thinning,

guide the white. Give

us the wisdom we cannot reach

but which reaches us—

like a mother bending down

to lift up her child.

Her touch is tonsure,

marks us as those

who walk between.

*

The candle’s second end

is meant to rest, deep in white,

held curled asleep.

It is light’s tiny fly

stilled in waxen

amber millennia past.

That moist wick, not

meant for flame,

is signal—will

sputter and snap at fire.

Burn everything else

in the long line of life,

but leave yourself

a remainder of what

you’ll be remembered for.

To Fear & Love

Irony may be on his deathbed, but now and then he sits bolt upright and wide-eyed, scaring the mourning relatives. He did this the other day. I jumped, and my heart raced when he said: “Fear of love keeps you from love.” And then he slumped back into his pillows and the doctor told us to go home and get some sleep.

If fear is my worst emotion, then love is my best. But trust the worst to try keeping me from the best. Fear is the proverbial pot of crabs, set on the stove to boil. If one of them finds a way to reach the rim, the others will pull him back in; if they can’t escape, they don’t want anyone else to. Fear doesn’t want me to know that there’s a way out. Fear is afraid of Love, so it keeps me from it. Oh, the times I sat, turning red, in boiling water!

Perhaps the deeper irony is that true Love took away all fear on the Cross, and yet I still yank fear back and hold onto it. Ridiculous.

So I decide to let ill irony die, and fear with him.

Love is living water. Love is refreshing, restoring, resplendent. Once in its wide and lovely waters, there should be no hint of a desire for that pot on the stove.

I am writing an obituary for fear and a “thank you” card for Love.

In Honor of Sunsets and Rest

Writers don’t need tricks or gimmicks or even necessarily need to be the smartest fellows on the block. At the risk of appearing foolish, a writer sometimes needs to be able to just stand and gape at this or that thing—a sunset or an old shoe—in absolute and simple amazement.—Raymond Carver

Ah, permission to gape! I feel vindicated. Two of my favorite verbs are “frolic” and “loll.” And yet I am studying in a culture self-described as “revivalist.” My two verbs of choice don’t seem to carry merit in such a context. Or do they?

If it is a confession to admit to my verbs, I will continue confessing; I like to read Oprah’s magazine, O. I read it for Martha Beck’s monthly essays of insight and advice. Early this autumn, she wrote a piece called “Lying Low” in which she advocated the maligned idea of rest in a hyperactive society. While in Africa, Beck watched a pride of lions lying down and purring for hours after a long hunt. Her friend’s comment led to this gem of advice: Rest like you mean it.

Not: rest when we have worn ourselves out to the point of an immune system collapse. Nor: rest when our annual vacation finally rolls around (at which point we likely suffer said collapse). Rather: be intentional about rest.

In the book of Isaiah, rest is linked to strength which is found in quietness and trust. If I want strength for revival, I’m going to need those traits.

To revive means to bring back to life, to renew, to restore from a latent state. Usually, the dormancy is the recharge time for the following vibrancy.

It is from a place of pause, of rest, that I am able to gape at a sunset (as opposed to hurling by in a car on an errand) and craft a poem that encourages someone to do the same. It is from a place of rest that my writer self can practice the art of paying attention long enough to write about what I’ve paid attention to.

“To just stand . . . .” Or to just sit.

Simple amazement, I welcome you.

Northbound

I like traveling as the crow flies. It has always bothered me to loop 360 degrees onto an off-ramp to exit the freeway, or to start going east to get west. So when I moved to southern Redding last month, I found myself a tad annoyed every day. The Interstate-5 exit I take to school is south of my little cabin. Which is fine, except that school is north.

I am the first to admit how ridiculous it is to waste thought on this wee bit of backtracking. And yet . . . .

Then I spent last week sick, hardly driving anywhere. To keep from going crazy I worked on an upcoming writing workshop. (Wordsmithing is right up there with lemon and honey as a balm for the common cold.) As I was gathering and drafting bits of writing advice, I wrote a suggestion I called, “Land the plane.” It’s about starting a poem far away to get close. Some topics are so big, they require a bit of navigation. Commercial planes begin their descent over a hundred miles from the airstrip. A poem about love might start with a glass of water. Then, like the plane, the poem readjusts, and might approach from the south to align with its northern destination.

Not unlike my daily commute.

I am deciding that my cabin’s location is a blessing. Every day I get to start out opposite to my intended direction—a pilgrimage in perspective adjustment. Every day, I have extra minutes for prayer, pause, or even to drink my water and begin a poem. Maybe even a poem about love.

The Heart Takes Flight

Tomorrow, I leave for California to begin second year at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry.

The first year was a grand adventure in every way, but especially the way of art + spirit.

Ten years ago, I wrote a dream list. Much of it has come true, albeit in ways I never imagined. A good example: To create a curriculum that blends arts and spirit, a course of study that is interdisciplinary beyond traditional, tangible media.

This spring, I created Eyes of the Heart, a workshop on prophetic arts which I have enjoyed sharing in churches this summer. It has been such a joy to see creativity ignited and used to bless others.

To celebrate this journey, I have created a limited-edition series, The heart takes flight. I kept it simple: hand-cut, pastel hearts on a 5” x 7” postcard like the three pictured above. The hearts have “broken” into birds and begun to take flight. The colors and exact nature of each heart vary—not unlike dreams.

A mixed set of three cards is $10, which includes domestic postage {add $3 for international}. Payment can be made:

• By check: c/o Albillo, 4322 Paulson Lane, Redding, CA 96002
• Online: through the Eyes of the Heart site (via the “donate” button at the bottom of the page)
• . . . and make sure to give me your mailing address
  

All proceeds from the sale of the cards will go toward arts in mission. Same for sales of my paintings this year. {My art is viewable at www.picasaweb.google.com/Annazonita.}

I love that dreams can take you places you never dreamed.

Dream big,

Anna Elkins

Psalm 85:10-11

Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven.

This is the eighth layer of painting that began with these verses charcoaled on a white canvas.

What does it look like for righteousness and peace to kiss? What is faithfulness rising?

The deep magenta became righteousness, beginning from above and entwining with green faithfulness rising from the earth. The white, whorled kiss is the start and the finish.

We meet again.

South Africa, 2010

Once I caught up on sleep, I finally sat down to write about the magnificent, activating, atmosphere-shifting trip to South Africa. That was last week. This is the umpteenth attempted format: sound bites. And since point of view has been on my mind as I consider a hefty revision of my long-dormant novel, think of the following in first-person plural. With 22 travelling companions, we managed an incredible unity. So, in one voice, here’s what we have to tell:

“She can see!” Eyes healed at a tent crusade, Hammanskraal Township outside of Pretoria

“She wants you to pray for her. She wants to know this Jesus.” A four-year old girl’s mother who translated for her daughter

“Lookout! He has a water gun!”
“No, that’s a Holy-water gun.”
“Get ready for baptism!” Water fight with Oasis Church members

“Hey! Who wants to speak only in tongues for an hour. Set your watches.” On the bus en route to Nelspruit

“Hey! Get off the roof. The canvas is ripping.”
“Yeah, that’s not in the budget.” Safari truck, Kruger National Park

“Look! Lions!”
And then: “Look! Lions . . . mating?”
“I think it’s a sign: our trip shall be fruitful.”
[After returning home] “Yeah, Facebook deleted those photos.” Kruger National Park

“You know how long this day was? This is the same day we went on safari.” After finishing a prayer tunnel at the end of a 15-hour day

“I like this word-of-knowledge thing.” When a word was called out for anyone with wrist pain, an athlete with wrist injuries was healed; he dropped and did 20 push-ups in front of the congregation

“That’s Pastor Surprise. He speaks a dozen languages that he received through divine impartation.” “Hmm. I’d like to learn Arabic that way. Cantonese, too.” New Covenant Church, Nelspruit

“Now that’s something to write on a postcard: ‘I just was just anointed by a man who’d been raised from the dead.’” New Covenant Church, Nelspruit

“Cappuccino! My clean socks for a cappuccino.” Most anytime

“So outreach went well. We went to KFC, and prayed for a guy with a limp. His leg was healed, and he started jumping up and down. The assistant manager and all the employees behind the counter came running over and asked us to pray for them. They wanted to know a God who heals.” KFC, Nelspruit

“We don’t have pit stops, we have healing-and-salvation stops.” After losing track of how many gas station attendants were saved/healed/delivered during our bus ride breaks

“I sat down next to a woman and started praying for her. When I asked if there was anything else I could do, she replied, ‘When you started praying, I had to read your lips. I was deaf. But now I can hear.” AIDS hospice, outskirts of East London

That’s just a taste, but it’s a sweet one. This adventure was beyond anything I could have planned or expected. And that’s just the way I’m starting to like it.

My sincerest gratitude to all of you who supported this trip with prayer and finances, anonymous and known. Blessings!