On this busy Advent Sunday, here's another poem from 2011.

Bleak midwinter music
shivers me into expectancy;
of course, I pep up, pink-cheeked
when I hear "you better not
shout," or full-blown fa la las,
but during these
waiting days,
give me "let all mortal flesh keep
silence." give me
its minor key and mystery,
set before me the fresh
solemn snow that I see within its
harmonies: bated-breath silence
slipping between each beckoning
word, Christ our God to earth
descendeth...
Within that promise, bleak midwinter shines.
Give me the waiting music,
the might and melt and mysticism of a
bobbing star.