bronze_ribbons. Art Meme: An Agnostic Jewish Advent Poem (Reply)

orbitalmechanic sent me earrings. I promised her a poem. Her prompt was "family."

This is the first draft (albeit with a few tweaks since I hit "post"). I haven't decided if I'm going to revise/circulate it further or not, or whether I should write a second poem that's less about me and more to do with the prompt. Regardless, this one's still for Jessie. ;-)

An Agnostic Jewish Advent Poem

for JSS

Looking east, it's hard to believe
December is less than a fortnight
away from descending upon us in all
of its glorious sound and tinselled fury.
I've told my friends my holidays of choice
are Beethoven's birthday and Hanukkah --
but, truth be told, I think those days chose me.
I used to wish I'd arrived on Ludwig's day --
to be his bicentennial "twin" -- but now
I'm glad to be merry in May instead, 
a Mozartean madrigal, lighter in its bowings
than Ludwig's storms of idealistic joy.
And yet a well-crafted thunder, a canny
ferocity -- the stage actor's knowledge 
of how to pitch one's voice just so,
to rouse the ghosts in the rear of the hall --
roars its beauty across my friends' days,
gleaming from their ink-clouded planners 
and sizzling through their prayers (and those
who do not pray still awe me with their fire,
devotion not a coin exclusive to gods).

I used to have a crush on Schroeder; it still
makes me sad that Charles Schulz frowned
upon B. D. Wong as Linus. That he spoke of the choice 
to cast a black man as the kid at the keyboard
as Broadway trying too hard to be liberal.
He later muted his disapproval, and
it wasn't ever his job to be modern,
just as it isn't my job to be Asian
even when people want to adore me just
for being from somewhere else. Even so,
it stung -- another miniscule yet material
knot in the thread of never quite belonging --
of knowing I'd never be seen as a Crachit
or Ingalls or West Side Maria or --
oh, the ors and the ands, they could render
a whole life parenthetical. 
				And yet,
there are times I choose to be just that.
My joy in Shabbat includes the knowing
I'll never be asked to leave the sidelines:
it's almost the only space in my life 
where no one even expects me to field the ball,
much less to score or to keep it in play.
This isn't to say I don't want to be needed:
I thrive on being a someone who matters --
who knows who to call, who can sing high and low --
but the Friday nights I can steal down the avenue
to chat with God and toast him with too-sweet wine
have the glow of luxury, of reading a book
just for fun. 
		That's what I do during Hanukkah --
watch the slender blue and silver candles
shine in my living room window, sip
a glass of pinot noir, open a book 
that doesn't require a notepad by my side --
living the life I already craved 
by the time I was ten, slipping out of bed 
to stare at the lights of the Pentecostal church 
across the street from my parents' house.
I didn't know Advent from Ascensions then;
after three years of Red House Baptist Sundays,
all I carried away were the names
of minor prophets, the trimmings of the myths
but not their actual flesh and blood and bone.
That came later -- and with it the loss
of cursing the devil, of praying for peace,
of speaking of Messiahs.
			 I write this as a theist
who doesn't believe in miracles, beyond
the staggering beauty of being alive
even when the pies are burning, and fools
belabor us with their banners of blame.
I wrestle with Advent, loving the doors
of its calendars, loving the sparks
of carefully measured-out joy it ignites,
yet all too aware that it isn't my season, 
its royal tapers somehow not my language
(even though, by logic, neither's Hebrew).
There's more to what we expect and what we hope
beyond what blood and belief would inspire.
Nobody knows for sure which actual day
brought Beethoven into the chord of the world,
and Jesus arrived -- who knows, October
or March? And yet the not knowing, I don't 
find it crucial, not as much as how 
we greet the days we color as holy, flanked
by the warmth of those to whom we matter 
because of shared begats, but also
the shining, stupendous grace of loving our chosen.

- pld, 11/17/2006