Advent Rosary

Dark Advent is a silent waiting time
When autumn chills into pale, year-end days
And joy seems smothered by hard-frosting rime:
Cold is the debt that spring to winter pays

The seasons link to seasons in a chain,
The chain of being that links, also, our souls,
Seasons and souls, not always without pain:
Summer’s wild lightning falls and thunder rolls.

Linked to us too, rose by mystical rose,
This holy Advent is Our Lady’s Grace
To us who wait in exile sad; she knows
Where souls and seasons sing, the Night, the Place.

Seasons and souls, linked to days dreary-dim:
Follow them with roses to Bethlehem