After Reading the Magnificat: Luke 1:46-55

by Anne Voegtlen

Here, within me, around me is

a new life I did not seek.

Within me, around me, the old certainties

have collapsed in the space of one

vanishingly brief wingbeat.

I am cast out from the relative

paradise I knew, the lush garden

of my own extended yesterdays.

But there is might in this moment,

if I’ll find it.  There is fresh life

gathering form around

the seed of struggle and loss.

Each day we are defeated

and yet we rise.  We are pounded

by rain, lashed by wind, and sometimes

surrender our history, let go

what is strong and deep and lively in us.

At the core, my soul is being

freshly born.  It is becoming

a dug well from which I soon

can drink.  I must do the digging,

deliver the message to

head, hands, and even

the wild heart, that huge muscle

holding me up to life, pushing back

the dark, the worry, the knell

of my worst & weakest moments.

No matter the shape and scale

of our pain, there is always a sliver of time

when good news might

arrive, when a messenger breath

might brace us. There is always a last

breath offered, even at the edge

of foundering.

From before me, souls have born

trial and triumph.

Because the soul is wide,

because the community of all our souls

spans generations,

there is time always

for hope,

for renewal,

for the cycle of death and rebirth

to continue,

for the rounding of loss

into softness and return.

There is time always for hope to ring in us,

to sing praise, to knit our small selves into

the long song of human life, the long song

of earth and stars.  We are made

to love all life and if we can

remember this, we will remember

the path back to who we are.