Sonnets for the Annunciation
Today is the feast of the Annunciation. Today we celebrate Mary’s willingness to be an outcast, to be rejected, as she said yes to the will of God. In celebration of this feast, I am sharing all the poems in my Joyful Mysteries sonnet sequence (first published in my book, Liturgical Entanglements). I pray these poems serve as aids to prayer on this day.
“Annunciation”
“Let it be as you have said,” the Handmaid
Of the Lord gives her consent. Her Fiat
Echoes back to when God eternally brought
The stars, the earth and all that was ever made
Into its bright existence. Through what she said
Mary becomes a kind––though humanly not
Divinely––of co-creatrix; it is her lot
To be the Mother of our Lord and his handmaid.
But we should not forget that Heaven’s Queen
Was a young and humble Jewish girl.
She lived and loved and laughed and had her fears.
She walked the streets of Palestine, seen
And heard and likely suffered insults hurled
At her. This is our Queen, who cried real tears.
“Nativity”
The night is cold when Mary begins to push,
She’s giving birth in the strangest circumstances.
For God is not coming in a flaming, unburnt bush,
Even if he comes during cosmic dances.
Mary’s recently wed, but seems like just a girl,
Just another Jewish girl who’s giving birth.
But this girl was about to change the world.
Because she said yes, the Savior comes to earth.
Surrounded by the animals of labor,
She labored on, pushing even harder,
Delivering up her Son who on Mt. Tabor
Would show himself as God in the human garden.
But Mary knew she’d one day feel the loss
Of seeing her Son dying on the cross.
“Visitation”
Two pregnant women meet, it is so strange
To think that something so natural could lead
Them to a moment of eternal exchange
A moment so simple, like the counting of a bead.
And yet it is so oddly extraordinary,
Life makes its home in a woman’s womb,
Life which we think so dully ordinary
Is itself a gift, one lost too soon.
But when Mary meets her pregnant, Levite cousin,
One baby in a womb, he leaps for joy
In the presence of the one who undoes sin.
And Elizabeth, she longs for Mary’s boy.
Adding to the gift of their conceptions,
Our Savior meets them in this visitation.
“Finding”
Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem,
With all the precociousness of a twelve-year-old.
He knew his Father’s will could never fail him,
But still, you likely thought he should told
You where he was and not just disappear.
After all, it was you who had been given
The Son of God, he was placed in your care,
And yet it was his work, his job to enliven,
To give us life abundantly, with joy.
What did you think when you saw him sitting down
And all the priests listening to your little boy,
Teaching them before he received his crown?
Did you rejoice to see him at his work?
Could you see the devil waiting where he lurked?
“Presentation”
Too poor to buy the proper sacrifice,
Mary and Joseph buy two simple doves.
Their Son was the Lamb who’d one day pay the price,
On whom the Dove would descend, the Spirit of Love.
He brought joy to the hearts of Simeon and Anna
While He, the Word, lay cooing, infant-wordless.
They saw before them the living Manna,
The One who came to die, to fight while swordless.
They prophesied the rise and fall of many,
The redemption of eternal Jerusalem,
An old man and woman dreaming dreams of plenty,
Of the baby who at last had come to save them.
Present him to us, sweet Mary, holy mother,
That we may meet humanity’s true Lover.
David Russell Mosley is a poet and theologian living in Washington State. His second book of poetry, Liturgical Entanglements, is out now. If you want to support his work, please consider donating through the button below.
