Magnificat

By Luci Shaw

I am singing my Advent anthem to you, God: How all year
I've felt your thrusts, every sound and sight stabbing
like a little blade -- the creak of gulls, the racket
as waves jostle pebbles, the road after rain, shining
like a river, the scrub of wind on the cheek, a flute
trilling -- clean as a knife, the immeasurable chants of green,
of sky: messages, announcements. But of what? Who?

Then last Tuesday, a peacock feather (surprise!)
spoke from the grass; Flannery called hers "a genuine
word of the Lord." And I -- as startled as Mary, nearly,
at your arrival in her chamber (the invisible
suddenly seen, urgent, iridescent, having put on light
for her regard) -- I brim over like her, quickening. I can't
stop singing, thoroughly pregnant with Word!