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Thursday, March 25, 2021

Poem: “The Annunciation” by Elizabeth Jennings

Nothing will ease the pain to come 
Though now she sits in ecstasy 
And lets it have its way with her. 
The angel’s shadow in the room 
Is lightly lifted as if he 
Had never terrified her there. 

The furniture again returns 
To its old simple state. She can 
Take comfort from the things she knows 
Though in her heart new loving burns 
Something she never gave to man 
Or god before, and this god grows 
Most like a man. 

She wonders how To pray at all, 
what thanks to give 
And whom to give them to. 
Alone To all men’s eyes I now must go” 
She thinks, “And by myself must live 
With a strange child that is my own.” 
So from her ecstasy she moves 
And turns to human things at last 
(Announcing angels set aside). 
It is a human child she loves 
Though a god stirs beneath her breast 
And great salvations grip her side.

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