WREATH

Advent, 1996

Tonight we will circle

the tall trunks of these candles

with a wheel of pine and cedar,

twine spring of Veni,Veni

into this compass with many needles

pointing us to what's been lost,

scattered to the periphery

of its open-coned center.

In weeks to come

we will light with the awestruck matches

of our tongues a Word waxing unseen

to the waning of these tapers;

a branch pushing through

the undergrowth of our waiting

that fires withing us

this burning toward the green.

-------Daniel Mills, quoted in SOJOURNERS MAGAZINE, Nov.-Dec, 1997