'This year of cancelled things...' - Advent 1, yrB

Based on Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37
'This year of cancelled things...'

Watching and waiting,
wary,
and weary with it.
Even so:
'Keep awake!'
comes the prophet's cry,
ringing out 
this year of cancelled things:
concerts and carnivals,
chit-chat and dreams crushed;
losses, collected like unwanted trophies.
Time, suspended,
turns hours into eternities
of fretful forgetfulness;
blue regret
paints our days.
'Stay alert,'
the prophet whispers,
as if we were not already in a state of hyper-vigilance.
Yet, beneath the whispered warning,
something else:
a sliver of light,
a shiver of encouragement 
in one small, wondered 'why?'
To keep awake,
to stay alert 
means
that there is more.
These are watchwords of hopefulness.
Dawn follows dark.
All will fade, and all will be made new.
In starlight's glimmer we glimpse
a pathway to a stable
full of promise
and hear, in the near,
footsteps
pregnant with possibility.
     c.Nik Mac 11/2020