I’ve enjoyed posting poetry series themed around the Christian year in recent years (see “Poetry for Lent,” “Poetry for Easter,“ and “Poetry for Ordinary Time“). I will continue that theme at this time of year with a series called “Poetry for Advent.” Advent explores both the first advent of Christ in the past, which we celebrate in His incarnation, and the second advent of Christ in the future, which we anticipate at his parousia.

I continue this series of Advent poetry with “Advent Calendar,” a poem by Rowan Williams. Dr. Rowan Williams (1950-present) was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury (2002-2012), and is acknowledged internationally as an outstanding theological writer, scholar, and teacher. Williams has written extensively across a wide range of fields including philosophy, theology, spirituality and religious aesthetics.

---

He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

---

Other poems in this series:

John Donne, “Annunciation”

Madeline L’Engle, “Into the Darkest Hour”