Advent: The Pain of Waiting

I never imagined that waiting at Christmas time could be so painful. This year, I await both the Christ child and, possibly, the appearance of my future brother-in-law. The former I know will come; the latter, well, I'm not getting my hopes up, but Christmas shouldn't be like this. Fear, darkness, some joy, some pain, suffering, waiting. Maybe this is the part that we fail to see when we wonder and rejoice at advent. I wonder if Mary felt all of these things? I wish an angel would come to this family and say that everything is going to be fine. So, this poem flows from the pain of waiting. I know who sees; I know the One who sees even in the darkness. I am glad that Christ's eyes are better than my own.

In the darkness, he cannot see.
Weighed down by years of something
we only know to call pain,
he is drowning himself in shame and guilt.

......A flash of light erupts!......
The sound of rock cracking and boiling
drowns any sense of reason and responsibility.
And the darkness closes in and no one sees the smoke.

A phone rings. And rings. And rings.
A busy signal here, an automated voice there.
The silence is deafening, like the darkness blinding,
and no one is free to let go of anyone.

Despair and fear hook their claws deep;
anger flies like arrows at the wrong targets,
and painfully hits those marks.
And blood and tears flow freely like a river.

No one sees the smoke. No one sees the boy.
No one sees another. No one sees the blood.
No one sees the tears. No one sees.
No one sees. Who is looking? Is anyone seeing?