(Grafted Poetry) Remembering that it Happened: Holy Expectation

January 30, 2015
Brandi Friesen Thorpe |

What is grafted poetry, you ask? It's an invention of my poetic play, and I offer you a definition;

/ˈgraft·ed po·et·ry/: A style of writing where in a writer grafts in another writer's poem, building off the prexisting work, altering it, and adding to it, to make it an entirely evolved peice of poetry. 

The following is a grafted poem based off the work of Wendell Berry, (do you recognize which one? points to the first correct guess!)  intended soley as a spiritual experiement, this one for the passed season of advent. As the season of lent draws nearer, I find there is some over lapping of application, not absolutely, but it purpose of the expectation and preparation. I offer it to you humbly. 

 

Remembering that it Happened: Holy Expectation

Walking through snow that is still
Something small stirs within my heart
Still holding on to me, still growing slowly
Not unfamiliar, not exactly known,
Yet it plants thick hunger, anticipation.
Something is growing, something good.
Walking forward the tension increases,
Like a flavour gathering recognition.
The snow has begun fall, becoming thicker
And I am surrounded, and it is like dawn.
 
I recognize this now, what stirs in me
in my heart, in this season, now
It is holy expectation, for a holy season
And seeds of this holy expectation
Have taken root in my spirit; my soul is
Proclaiming praise, proclaiming joy
And proclaiming that in this we are united
 
Remembering that it happened once,
We cannot turn away the thought,
As we go out, cold, to our homes
Toward the long night’s end, that we
Ourselves are living in the world
It happened in when it first happened,
That we ourselves, opening a door
(A latch thrown open countless times
Before), might find them breathing there,
 
Foreknown: the Child bedded somewhere odd
The mother kneeling over Him,
The husband standing in belief
He scarcely can believe, in light
That lights them from no source we see,
An early morning’s light, the air
Around them joyful as a choir.
We stand with one hand on the door,
Looking into another world
That is this world, the pale daylight
Coming just as before, our chores and jobs
To do, the spouse and children all awake,
Our own frozen breath hanging
In front of us; and we are here
As we have never been before,
Sighted as not before, our place
Holy, although we knew it not.
Joy, as we knew it not,
is a stranger being met
 
Our hearts interrupt the stillness in praise
For we encounter joy in this wild place
that is the same place that holy expectation
came to be, and was humbly born.
Holy, although we knew it not, stirring still

 

- Wendell Berry, grafted by Brandi Friesen Thorpe

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