ADVENT FOR MAD SWEENEY

Coldest now up this tree,
shagged by ice and wind
and haled by high moonlight.
Halcyon, yes, if you’re dead.
Or leaning that way, re-learning
Advent in the bittering slog
of freezing winter nights.

Below and beyond I see
warm lights, chimneys billowing
fire-smoke and children caroling
house to house their Christ.

How I miss those cloistered
enclosures where a man
was everything he said
and a sword’s amen
counted for everything
in the pile of heads.
The mead and the feasting,
the white breasts of the maid,
all festively enveloped in
songs for the King.

Christmastide beckons
to all that’s lost inside:
But not so tonight
for this man of the mound,
exiled by the new God
to a cold aerie’s cross
far from hearth of
a welcoming mind.

Here where the wind
bleeds stars onto branches
and the wolf howls Jesu
I’m wild and…