Annunciation

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation and seems like a good time to publish a vilanelle I recently completed.

ANNUNCIATION

She trembled at the sight of those strong wings
That broke the silence of her world that day
And brought the word which all creation sings.

The angel asked if she were one who clings
To private hopes and dreams. What could she say?
She trembled at the sight of those strong wings

And said, “I pray that God find openings
And in our darkened age will find a way
To speak the word which all creation sings.”

The angel said, “I am the one who brings
That word to you.” She gasped in her dismay,
And trembled at the sight of those strong wings

And yet she said, “Amen. Whatever springs
From God’s good will is my joy to obey
And bear the word which all creation sings.”

What could she do? There was no time to weigh
Alternatives or ask for some delay.
She trembled at the sight of those strong wings
And bore the word which all creation sings.

Christopher L. Webber
March 25, 2010

In fairness, I should add that a key phrase here comes from a poem of e.e.cummings so I will provide that as well.

A Christmas poem by E.E. Cummings

from spiralling ecstatically this

proud nowhere of earth’s most prodigious night
blossoms a newborn babe: around him, eyes
–gifted with every keener appetite
than mere unmiracle can quite appease–
humbly in their imagined bodies kneel
(over time space doom dream while floats the whole

perhapsless mystery of paradise)

mind without soul may blast some universe
to might have been, and stop ten thousand stars
but not one heartbeat of this child; nor shall
even prevail a million questionings
against the silence of his mother’s smile

–whose only secret all creation sings