Alongside the theme of Hope during the first week of Advent, many Christians light a candle to remember the role prophecy has played in our hope. I’ll be writing a sonnet for each candle of Advent, as well as a series of shorter poems for every theme that goes with the candles.
– MR
You’ve walked this street day after day, each time
the same: just grey and brown and lined with doors
on either side and suddenly before
you stands a cindered brand, a man whose prime
is past.
But if that’s so what are those chimes
you hear each time he speaks, what is the roar
that presses in around you like a war
between vast armies, like a vine that climbs
to tear a building down? What is this tree
that sprouts despite itself, the desert road
lined with the bones of thousands?
Why the flow
of blood through every lumined word? You see
a carnivore reclining with its prey
and turn—the man is ash, the street is grey.
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Beautiful.
love the (what shall we call it) 'visualised caesura' (?) in line 3