Happy Annunciation!

(I wrote this for a competition & didn't win & had to put it somewhere)

In My Hand

A Verse for the Annunciation

Lentils strewn

across the wall

in a dusky wave

These things I remember

Mid-day hunger

we had an onion

so the stew smelled rich

I filled my bowl to the brim,

heard a rustling,

like leaves

or the tops of juniper trees

swaying in the wind

And turned

"Hail, Full of Grace ..."

Light broke 

with a voice

terrible,

but sweet

I could see him

yet through him

he was golden,

white and blue --

with silver specks

sparking off his skin

like moonlight on water

And the lentils,

they flew

from my hand

when I jumped

and gasped

and grabbed my throat

to find it silent

Only the sound

of a wooden bowl,

clattering across stone,

and his words,

"Be Not Afraid,"

filled the room

As strong and as real

as the fire beneath my pot

As strong and as real

as the cold beneath my feet

As strong and as real

as the waft of lentils

for which,

I was no longer hungry

These things I remember

I hold them in my hand

like the same wooden bowl,

now cracked on one side,

my finger finds the line often

and traces it

like a scar

Especially when I feed

my Son of the Most High

lentils or pottage or goat curds,

His favorite,

and He squeals and smacks and splats

them on His face,

in my hair,

on the wall

I laugh at the Child's dancing brown eyes,

but words spoken over Him

grip my heart all the more

as He now reaches

to grip my hand

"And of His Kingdom there shall be no end."

Yea, be it done to me according to thy word.