Advent.

In religious terms, Advent is the 28 days before Christmas. When I was a kid, it was more like a painfully protracted countdown. T minus 28 to bike/train set/scalectrix etc. Christmas came and went and the excitement faded with the last of the turkey sandwiches and the Savage Smyth lemonade and Jacob's USA biscuits. By the time the only ones left were those manky pink wafers, you knew it was truly over.

Patrick Kavanagh was a leading poet of the 20th century. Perhaps one of his greatest poetic skills was the ability to capture the scene and portray it through the eyes of a child. In keeping with the time of year, perhaps his poem - Advent is one of the greatest examples of his craft. Thanks Paddy.

Advent - a poem by Patrick Kavanagh.

We have tested and tasted too much, lover-
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child's soul, we'll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.

And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.

O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching
For the difference that sets an old phrase burning-
We'll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning
Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.
And we'll hear it among decent men too
Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,
Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
Won't we be rich, my love and I, and
God we shall not ask for reason's payment,
The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges
Nor analyse God's breath in common statement.
We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour-
And Christ comes with a January flower.