YouTube video of the poem’s text with Christmas soundtrack: https://youtu.be/fD1k_hfUDFE
(Read the preface to this poem here.)
Based on Mark 5:25-34:
A woman suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus and said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” She came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. Immediately she was healed. Jesus, perceiving that power had gone out from him, turned and said, “Who touched my garments?” His disciples said, “You see the crowd pressing around you?” The woman came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace…”
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened…” (Mt 11:28)
Adeste fideles. (Come, faithful).
Advent Prequel To Footprints
(Neil Durso)
Energy, misbalanced.
Self-centered lifetime.
Other-centered lifetime.
Tiresome battles lost.
Shameful failure.
Wasted toils?
No. Delivery to the now.
A curled, sobbing heap,
Writhing on sands of self-desertion.
A finger trembling, raised to an eye…
Tap its pool of tears, running them thin,
Glimpse through the blur:
A shadow over tears on dead sand
Shades the relentless brightness of scorching shame,
Revealing a garment’s hem resting on sandaled toes.
Stretch out of despair a hand.
Touch a finger to the coarse fabric.
From that cloak, a hand extends,
Re-flavoring tears that flow still.
From a spring deep within, never fully felt.
Feel it now. Don’t wrestle floodgates inside.
Epic struggle.
Ordained end.
Rivulets of tears baptize anew.
Every ounce of unrequited effort poured out has prepared the way…
Enormous fruitlessness was the way.
En route to the quenching fruit of energy exhausted.
The garment takes you up, in its arms
So gentle, their power feels misplaced.
You tremble at tenderness so unfamiliar.
From this bottom, from this birthplace,
In His wake are one set of footprints.
…
At cool evening’s arrival,
You’re lowered lovingly
To your own feet.
Refreshed.
At His side.
He at yours.
Two sets of feet imprint the sands.
Onward in silence.
For a time.
Then,
The silence drips into distant song
On fleeting breezes.
Whispering beneath the rising chorus,
“Whither, Yeshua?”
“The City of David.”
A bright star draws your gaze.
And He is gone.
Shepherds appear.
On pilgrimage.
To Light.
Above the sonorous din of lambs’ bleating,
Lyrics grow clearer…
Carried by the parade, your heart then
Your tongue join the hosts’ song.
Reborn of unshackled brokenness,
The beckoned joins the calling:
“O… O… come, all ye faithful…”
(song)
(Read the preface to this poem here.)
-Neil D. 2019-12-16
(revised from 2018-12-24)
Feel with Neil 
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