What Becomes Clear in Advent

THE SECOND WEEK OF ADVENT

It's becoming clearer, to me, this Monday,

this morning. My grandfather, Victor,

who named my father, Wayne Emmanuel,

before they locked him up for his craziness

(Where they locked up the mentally ill

in North Dakota, there being no treatment),

did a wonderful thing, naming him,
God-within-us, God-Among-us,

and my father, Wayne Emmanuel,

often embarrassed about his name,

never-the-less, signed that E

with such flourish. I have written poems

about this from my beginnings--

returning now to what I began with,

the clearing--it is no more (but all of it!)

than this, thrown out, though they were,

cast asides, they held to their names,

Victor, Emmanuel. Their names, long denied,

were always who they were.

Jim Bodeen

11 December 2017