Star
by Micha Boyett

After the angel dissolved, I stood among the skies,
clothed not in spun linen, but in fire:
the sun’s silk my gown. I leaned into the swirl of gold and lit.

Have I created my Creator?

My mother clucks her tongue. Questions, she says,
cause confusion. She could never hold what I saw:

the crown on this plain brown head,
twelve stars in motion, set spinning like a child’s toy,
and rushing toward me, flames in its wake, blazed
the greater star, its hot white orb.

Should I tell you it entered me, how the warm simmer settled?

When I woke to this dirt floor, my mother’s voice
in the next room, issuing me out the door,
I ran my hands down my belly,
knew what is true is crown, not dirt.

Later, when the nausea churned, when the accusations
birthed, when all I loved turned enemy,
I stood in the garden, arms raised,
closed my eyes and let the spinning crown encircle me,
felt this star descend to human form.

from the Mama:Monk blog


In Mary-Darkness
by Jessica Powers

I live my Advent in the womb of Mary
And on one night when a great star swings free
From its high mooring and walks down the sky
To be the dot above the Christus i,
I shall be born of her by blessed grace.
I wait in Mary-darkness, faith’s walled place,
With hope’s expectance of nativity.
I knew for long she carried me and fed me,
Guarded and loved me, though I could not see,
But only now, with inward jubilee,
I come upon earth’s most amazing knowledge:
Someone is hidden in this dark with me.

from The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, edited by Regina Siegfried, ASC, and Robert F. Morneau. Kansas City, MO: Sheed & Ward, 1989.