275 - The Annunciation

The Annunciation
By M. Pamela Smith

The moonglow in a manshape
after a light rain,
crooks and staffs or the limbs of trees
tricking their shadows into angel wings,
the bleat of sheep on a far-off hill,
and the whistle of a stiff night wind-
perhaps it was nothing
but that on her pallet she had drowsed into a dream.

Yet the next morning she would have sworn
that there had been a man
or the ghost of a man
who announced himself as Gabriel
and hailed her "full of grace,"
yes, hailed, as if she were a princess,
a queen, a Roman empress, she …
Perhaps it was nothing
but that on her pallet she had drowsed into a dream,
yet he foretold that she would bear a son,
a son whose name would be Emmanuel,
and she, a simple Hebrew girl, believed
but wondered how,
for there had never been a man …
Perhaps it was nothing
but that on her pallet she had drowsed into a dream
and had awakened only now
thinking that in her sleep
the power of the Most High God had overshadowed her
and come as the wings of a dove,
thinking that in her sleep
no man but a ghost called Gabriel …

The moonglow in a manshape
after a light rain,
crooks and staffs or the limbs of trees
tricking their shadows into angel wings,
and a ghost called Gabriel prophesying

Sister M. Pamela Smith is a graduate of Villanova University. A member of the religious order of Saints Cyril and Methodius (SS.C.M.), she has published articles in The New England Quarterly, Ariel, and Sisters Today and poems in a number of literary magazines. Her lines "Peter, to His Knees," appeared in the July, 1975, issue of THEOLOGY TODAY. "The Annunciation" reminds us that Advent will soon be here.

276 - The Annunciation

"And the Lord God will give him the throne of David his
father,
and he shall be king over the house of Jacob forever"-
perhaps it was nothing
but the bleat of sheep on a far-off hill
and the whistle of a stiff night wind.