A poem for fast-approaching Advent

Withered leaves panic
Before the knives of wind.
They scurry directionless,
Longing for peace,
Burial in a swansdown of flurries.
Deadblown, yet swirled into false life,
Their nature calls for a return to earth--
To become bits and pieces of the kingdom
From which new life will grow.

Darkness drives down the sun,
Loosing the night cold as blue metal;
Together we beg the return of fire
And you hear, O Lord.
Sun's slow revolve enthrones a
Little one on wood warmed with straw.
Childbirth is risky--he comes
As he goes
In a rush of blood and water.
In the night, with loaves and wine,
We become the little one;
Blood brothers and water sisters,
Bits and pieces of the kingdom.

- "Leaves in Solstice"
Dennis Kennedy