Advent 4: "When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting..."

Visitation

I was months into the heaviness

Of child-carrying,

swaybacked and swollen, and my husband

Mute as an old stone—

So that I heard it all the louder when Miriam’s shout

Reached me from the dust-choked road outside.

I raced out to see her standing there,

Glowing with sweat, her body just beginning

To take on a mother’s curves beneath her robes.

And then the child that nestled sweet

Beneath my heart

Leapt—not a simple turning, not a kick,

But jumped as if some new and secret joy

Had set him dancing: and it was then I knew—

Knew who it was she bore within herself.

Later some would call it solemn, grand; but truthfully,

We laughed as we embraced: breast to breast,

Cheek to smiling cheek,

And I know that both our sons

were laughing too,

in that way of old friends meeting

after years,

when all time seems as nothing,

and the space

between lives collapses

into grace.

-Anne Giedinghagen

(From Spiritus Abbey - A Monastery Without Walls)