Poem for the First Sunday of Advent

Wachet Auf   (Wake up!)

Advent.

Season when

Dual citizenship

Holds us in

Awkward tension.

The world, intent on

Spending Christmas,

Eats and drinks its way to

Oblivion after dinner.

The Kingdom sounds

Insistent warnings:

Repent, be ready,

Keep awake,

He comes..

Like some great fugue

The themes entwine:

The Christmas carols,

Demanding our attention

In shops and pubs,

Bore their insistent way

Through noise of traffic;

Underneath, almost unheard,

The steady solemn theme of

Advent.

With growing complexity,

Clashing, blending,

Rivals for our attention,

Themes mingle and separate,

Pulling us with increasing

Urgency,

Until in final resolution,

The end attained,

Harmony rests in aweful

Stillness, and

The child is born.

He comes,

Both Child and Judge.

And will he find us

Watching?

Ann Lewin wrote this after hearing Bach’s Advent Choral Prelude:

Wachet Auf/Sleepers wake!

Tina Lamb