An Annunciation Delayed

From time to time, poetry makes its way up onto the blog.  This is a poem that I wrote in mid-April around the official celebration of the Feast of Annunciation, which was delayed because March 25th fell during Holy Week this year.  The poem speaks to a lot more than the Annunciation- it is rooted in my own journey and call, the connection to the Holy Spirit deep within each one of us and the way in which we come to know the One who loves us so dearly in the midst of all else in our lives.

Where were you, Mary, when you heard that voice?
When Gabriel, in all God's glory, stood before you?
I always imagined it in the dark of night
in stillness
undisturbed yet utterly chaotic
No one else to feel it or to hear it.
A disruption by the Divine
A moment so dear, so deep
with no one
with the division of millenia
Yet, I can feel it myself.

Like buds bursting
The fuchsia flame of magnolia
across my soul.
The Spirit come to roost.

But perhaps, you weren't in the dark
dear Mary.
Maybe it was as you opened your eyes
on a new day
or it was in the middle of dashing from place to place
An interruption unplanned.
Some thing just as easily pushed aside by innocent bystanders.

Did it stop you in your tracks that day?
Or did it take until mid-April to sink in
and then you awoke one morning
to the not so sudden realization
An annunciation delayed.

And when it crossed your mind
each and every time
it stirred something deep within
even after the promised baby boy
was outside of you.

Like a match dragged across emery,
igniting time and space.
There was love.
From toe tips to split ends.
Wherever you were, that space was inside you.

Where were you when it happened?
Unplanned.
Non-negotiable.
Digging out its own space,
Taking up residence,
Returning home.
So that you might never be lost or late
but simply delayed in grace.