A voice cries out from the razed earth, 
wilderness born of the scouring rage 
of Herod and his descendants, 
ancestors and antecedents

A voice cries out, infant prophet 
unsoothed by honey, hoarse from trauma, 
murder of the innocents, blood and milk
abomination on the altar of envy

A voice cries out, how long, o Lord,
how long? The road is bombed out, 
bone-filled, the way to peace serpentine, 
its lines washed away by floods of terror

A voice cries out, make way, 
for one is coming, dragging his cross 
with him like a birthmark, 
rising above the city on wings of the 

Voice that cried out across the waters 
of creation, calling forth wild, resinous sap 
of an uncultured earth seeping to the surface, 
a gentle trap baited with hope.

My first Advent as a priest was the season of Sandy Hook. That Sunday the Gospel was about John. I realized that he must have grown up in the shadow of that massacre of innocents committed by Herod; although he, like his cousin, escaped, it would leave its mark on his parents and his small self.

I find myself this Advent once again, for obvious reasons, contemplating post-traumatic John the Baptist, his infant self and all that imprinted itself upon him through the coming of the Christ child and the world’s unwillingness to accept the angels’ proclamation of peace upon the earth.

The final stanza is informed by the opinion offered by a guide in Jordan that the wild honey that John ate was not made by bees but exuded by fruit trees, remnants of the garden of Eden.

#preparingforSundaywithpoetry Year B Advent 2, December 2023