When the deserts turn to gardens
and the sands to seas of wheat
where you drown our sin in pardons,
all the flocks will come to eat,
from the open skies descending
to the orchards you have made.
They will sing their exile’s ending
where the eggs will then be laid.

In the plot your love encloses,
all the mournful chants are stilled;
barren hillsides bloom with roses;
and the empty nests are filled.
Now the fledgling is a mother
and the granddam tends a brood
at their home—they want no other—
in the orchard of the rood.

Though our wings are prone to falter,
you are gentle with the weak.
Let this garden be your altar
where we find the nest we seek!
Bless the nest and bless the nestlings—
Oh, the mercies of your gift!—
casting down the hawk sky-cresting,
but the sparrows, Lord, you lift.

Painted tiles with design of birds from Qajar dynasty, Iran By Unknown author – Photo by davidmus.dk, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25157065

The coins you gave I buried in a field.
Each day the trumpets and the drums
I hear yet closer as you come.
I’ll dig them up, and harvest what they yield.

For I hear, too, the rattle and the clink—
the talent, drachma, shekel, mite,
they know their worth and sing aright:
“This gleam was meant to buy the thirsty drink,

“to clothe the naked, shut the winter out.
To bury gold is as to steal
the bread that is our savior’s meal—
that he’ll redeem us, too, oh, make no doubt.

“We were his glory buried in the vein,
and all creation groans to see
our beauty from your hand set free.
We shall be worthless when he comes to reign

“except as diadems to crown his own,
and even then to crown his praise,
Amen and Ancient of our Days,
the saints will cast us down before his throne!

“And we shall be at last as we were made:
We shall be beautiful and bright,
but dim beside his lasting light.
And you shall shine, by no dark thoughts betrayed.”

I hear them, as I hear the church bell chime
that tells the coming of the end.
This is the hour my ills to mend:
Oh, let me dig them up while there is time

and spend this world’s dishonest wealth to gain
a pearl of greater price than all,
in answer to your mercy’s call,
a crown to cast down when you come to reign!

The Parable of the Talents, depicted by artist Andrei Mironov. Oil on canvas, 2013 – Own work, Andrey Mironov See also ticket:2015070410013036http://artmiro.ru/photo/religija_zhanrovaja_kartina/pritcha_o_talantakh/4-0-398, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30528194

How many times, Jerusalem,
the hen spread out her wings
for you to shelter under them
from all the weather brings,

as if to gather all the flock
to refuge in his arm,
secure as on the highest rock
and safe from every harm?

Now darkness gathers near at hand
and thunder fills the air.
Against this fury, who can stand?
What help shall come? From where?

Yet this is but his wings outspread:
Oh, see the mother hen
who had no place to lay his head
has come to us again!

And now upon the storm he rides—
What shelter shall we take?
Our peace within his heart abides,
laid open for our sake.

Then come, O come, Jerusalem;
full soon the storm will start.
His wings are spread: Run under them
and shelter in his heart!

Poules de race faverolles (Limoges, Haute-Vienne, France) By Babsy – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27067797

A sparrow falls and it is gone,
but there is one who holds it still,
and in the everlasting dawn
the sparrow’s song his sky shall fill.

Though fear will steal our very breath;
though all the bonds we knew disjoin
as father gives his own to death;
two sparrows sell for one small coin,

yet comes a one who knows their names.
Though we may fall, he lifts us then.
Each feather, wing, and note he claims,
and in his hand they live again.

He gathers all the fragments up
though their sharp edges hurt his hands,
and shapes again the potter’s cup
that evermore unbroken stands.

He fills it from the living spring
of mercy falling as the dew.
Oh, see the sparrow rise and drink!
Our broken love is all made new!

The Turtle Dove by Sophie Gengembre Anderson (1903) – The Athenaeum: Home – info – pic, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=896

God at last has looked with favor,
set the barren branch aflame.
Child, you will bring forth a savior;
generations praise your name.

Eden’s memory still is verdant,
though we lost its walks and ways.
Child, your son will crush the serpent,
will your fallen mothers raise.

Long we labored in our sorrow:
You will share our grief and pain
bringing forth our life’s tomorrow.
Child, your tears will be our gain.

So we call across our history—
bitter laughter, broken trust,
blood, deceit, yet more of mystery—
Hear us calling from the dust:

We have waited for your coming.
You, the morning long prepared,
set our dry bones stirring, thrumming
with a hope we’d hardly dared.

Mary, hear your mothers’ chorus,
you among all women blest.
Kiss our son and savior for us
as he nestles at your breast.

Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the young lion shall browse together,
with a little child to guide them.
The cow and the bear shall be neighbors,
together their young shall rest;
the lion shall eat hay like the ox.
The baby shall play by the cobra’s den,
and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair.
–Isaiah 11:1-10

When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees
coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers!
Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.
And do not presume to say to yourselves,
‘We have Abraham as our father.’
For I tell you,
God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees.
Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit
will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
—Matthew 3:1-12

O wolf, come be a guest: Your host the lamb
will see you want for nothing.  Cow and bear,
come nurse together, cub and calf and dam.
The child will lay his hand on the adder’s lair.

The child will lay his hand on the viper’s brood,
and predator and prey shall break his bread,
an end at last to every ancient feud.
The withered stump shall blossom, though long dead.

The harvest comes, the fall before the feast:
The tares shall bear good seed, the thorn trees fruit,
and many come from the west and from the east.
His axe is laid already at the root.

Though we shall fall before him in his hour,
yet from the dust lift up your head and see
the fearsome lions grazing by his power.
All nature is made new, and so are we.

Come, vipers, come and take the infant’s hand.
As death itself, we shall have no more sting.
Upon our bellies we have crawled the land,
but like the angels we shall rise and sing.

Identificatie Titel(s): Kerstkaart van Henri Verstijnen Verde op uw wegen (titel op object) Objecttype: kerstkaart Objectnummer: RP-P-2018-286-18 Opschriften / Merken: datum Vervaardiging Vervaardiger: prentmaker: Henri Verstijnen (vermeld op object) Plaats vervaardiging: Nederland Datering: dec-1935 Materiaal en Techniek Fysieke kenmerken: houtsnede op transparant papier Materiaal: papier transparant papier Techniek: houtsnede Afmetingen: blad: hoogte 226 mm × breedte 150 mm Onderwerp Wat: trees: palm-tree, beasts of prey, predatory animals: lion, lamb Wie: Henri Verstijnen Verwerving en rechten: Verwerving: onbekend 2018 Copyright: Publiek domein By Rijksmuseum – http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.694256, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=151291177

There was a dove in the apple tree,
with a low, low, my love, my love,
among the green boughs, sweet to see,
and sweet he sang upon the ear,
but Eve and Adam could not hear,
with a low.

For Adam ate as Eve had bid,
with a low, low, my love, my love,
and from the Father then they hid.
For Eve had eaten at a word—
not dove but serpent she had heard,
with a low.

And now the dove weeps all the day
with a low, low, my love, my love,
for all Eve’s children, welaway!
The tears he weeps, they fall as rain
for bitter sorrow, bitter pain,
with a low.

But he will cast his feathers down
with a low, low, my love, my love,
and weave himself a briar crown,
will lose his song and still his flight
and fall to earth in dead of night,
with a low.

Then helpless as a child and weak
with a low, low, my love, my love,
to one bright maiden shall he speak,
and she, Eve’s daughter, she will hear
and let the poor, plucked dove draw near,
with a low.

She’ll shelter him beneath her breast
with a low, low, my love, my love,
and for her kindness we’ll be blest.
Soon Eve and Adam, they will see
the sweetest fruit of the apple tree,
with a low.

Title page from the first known publication of “The 12 days of Christmas” – Anonymous (1780). Mirth without Mischief. London: Printed by J. Davenport, George’s Court, for C. Sheppard, no. 8, Aylesbury Street, Clerkenwell. pp. 5–16., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30411330

And in a moment, everything is changed
from then to now, a faultline riving time
as all the world she knows is rearranged.
As if she hears a far-off cymbal chime

and lifts her eyes and sees the world made new,
her deep-cut eyes, and sees a world beyond
the daily shadows she is used to view
where light we long for has already dawned.

Her image, funerary monument:
Is death the gate through which the angels come?
A meaning far from what her parents meant,
this stone cries out, and yet the stone is dumb.

Across the gallery, winged Hermes stands
to lead her where all sorrow’s held at bay,
and confident into the unseen lands
to go where Eve has waited many a day

she nods and steps away into the light.
And looking at her flight I catch my breath.
There are so many endings to the night.
An angel folds its wings in Nazareth.

Portrait of maiden, Maiden of Vulci, Tolonia Collection,
© Fondazione Torlonia. https://www.fondazionetorlonia.org/ritratto-di-fanciulla

For the First Sunday of Advent (Year A):

The night is now far gone,
and swiftly comes the dawn.
Make ready for the Lord of day:
Prepare the way!

Though now the sky is dark,
he kindles here the spark.
No eye can see, no ear can hear,
yet he draws near.

Bow down, then, mountain pride
not to oppose his stride.
Make straight a highway in the waste—
he comes in haste.

You valleys, lift your heads,
and deeps of all my dreads.
Let me come there though I am weak,
to him I seek.

When on the clouds he comes,
no more the martial drums
disturb our peace, and all who warred
shall bend the sword.

Then turn now, anger’s blade,
to plow this hidden glade.
This wilderness shall bear a feast
when dawn breaks east.

Through deserts in my soul
he’ll make his rivers roll.
My barren places blooming green
in him are seen.

And he shall make a way
to bring my night his day.
Let all I am, while dark the skies,
awake and rise!

13th century depiction of a ploughing By Baudouin d’Arras – photographie, travail personnel, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3837028