WinterSong: Book Talk for the Rev Gals

To participate in Monday's Book Talk or to learn more about the authors of these pieces, go to my post on RevGalBlogPals. We're discussing the book WinterSong by Madeleine L'Engle and Luci Shaw.

After Annunciation

This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There'd have been no room for the child.
- Madeleine L'Engle


Winter Nights

Your father, when he died,
left this thing behind, his head thing,
he called it - a square
of knitted wool, beige, blue,

to tuck around his head,
like a small rug. I finger it
now, (the stitches like
his body cells, like all

the intricate minutes of his life),
almost the way I fingered it
growing on the needles
knitting for him a meager defense

against those Illinois nights
in December when he'd wake
with a headache
from the cold. Afterwards

I slept with it hugged
to my chest like a stuffed
animal - a brief blanket for
my heart, a comfort. like him.
-Luci Shaw


That Tiny Flame

I think of James Clement (in The Love Letters and Certain Women) telling of the making of cider in the winter, when it is put outdoors to freeze. In the center of the frozen apple juice is a tiny core of pure flame that does not freeze. My faith (which I enjoy) is like that tiny flame. Even in the worst of moments it has been there, surrounded by ice, perhaps, but alive.
- Madeleine L'Engle