2 Sonnets

Who is Mary? 
Advent 4 Luke 1:26-38           


Not blue and white, immaculate and fair?

The Mary I imagine and admire

is dark, with untamed eyes that probe and flare:

a woman fit to mate with Spirit fire.

The label “Virgin” now precedes her name,

as though to guarantee unworldly worth,

yet earthy common sense has made her game

to challenge as unlikely virgin birth.

No awe of angels holds her question back;

no meekness keeps her from an honest doubt.

If she agrees, she knows she’ll face attack,

and words that shame, or stones may drive her out.

So understand how brave is her reply:

“I’ll serve as you have said. Yes! Here am I!”


		Barbara Messner 15/12/2020

Nativity

To Mary bearing down on love,

pain comes through saying: “Here am I.”

Bring down to earth the God above?

Plain sense and comfort question why.

Birth pangs are hers, but also his,

pushed out into a world like this,

where God with us must learn to cry.

Yet that first cry we hear as gift

more precious than the gold of kings,

and his last cry can bridge the rift

more surely than all angels’ wings,

for he is us, our pain is his,

and joy finds voice in cries like this.

“We are new born!” our being sings.

	Barbara Messner December 2019