In Advent stillness and its purpled nights
We turn within and with a solemn gaze
Consider well our soul’s more recondite
And sundry impulses: the many ways
By which we hamper grace’s sweet release
And godly intuitions misappraise.
Within that holy mood we sense the cease
Of wayward thoughts, the birth of something wise.
We should not, though, be fooled by Advent’s peace.
Its quiet introspection can disguise
What truly on that Night of Nights transpired:
The shepherds shook beneath the riven skies
At what excited so the angel choir:
A baby who would set the world on fire.
Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, Ekstasis Magazine, Amethyst Review, The Society of Classical Poets, The Chained Muse, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He was the 2nd Place winner in the Catholic Literary Arts 2022 Assumption of Mary poetry contest and 1st Place winner in its Advent: Mary Mother of Hope contest later that year. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room.