All nights become silent and holy,
Laved in the candlelight of our prayers,
As muted songs of lamentation are sung,
Rising as incense in autumn nights’ air.
In this place of our lonely exile,
Anticipation rises again in our breasts
For a child, to be born of a virgin in Bethlehem,
To break the chains of our discontent,
To shatter God’s silence, and end Death’s scorn,
And once more Creator and creation to reconcile.
In him we pray for all our fears to end, as we,
Wearing our pain as vestments, lift our Eucharistic
Bread above Babylon’s desert waste and hills,
In faith, hope, and remembrance of a child,
His innocence, to take away our frailty and guilt,
That he will rise majestic above our doubts
Into the yellow of daffodils, chrysanthemums,
And the white of lilies of spring.
 

For Thomi and John Glover
Charles van Heck
Advent Poem © 2025 Charles van Heck