Waiting

[Second poem written today, woot. Blog spot messed with my line breaks though]

Sitting in the Chinese place near my house
with three of my room mates, I'm beginning to realize
I'm no good at waiting. General Tso's chicken
will get to me, but every time the door to the kitchen
moves an inch, I start salivating. 5 minutes turns into 10
turns into 15 could turn into anything: a month
a year, hell it could be another 2000 years.
HOW LONG MUST I WAIT? Bobby has a final at 1
for Gods sake, How long?
Every second is torture on an empty stomach.

It's December 7th, and as a history major
I know it's an important date, but I can never remember
just what happened. Was it D-Day, or the Attack on Pearl Harbor?
Google tells me Pearl Harbor. A man at my church was at Pearl Harbor
when the attacks happened. I like the way he tells the story, "Well,
everybody had to be somewhere, I was on the John." I wonder
how many of those service men had finished their Christmas shopping.
How many were waiting to go home for holiday leave? I hope it wasn't many.
Had to be a bummer, no Christmas with the family
and on top of that, a fresh new global conflict.

My little cousins are at the age where this season is at full effect.
They can't sit still. Santa is ever at the for front of their minds.
Waiting for Christmas morning is tough for them--but fortunately
they don't have to wait the full time. Christmas Eve, they open
at least a few gifts. A sneak peak. It makes me smile, even though
they can be quite frustrating in the run up to opening time.
It makes me smile, because though the presents are divorced
from the traditional meaning behind Advent, the effect is still working.
They're waiting, growing ancy and excited--anticipating future awesomeness.

It's Advent, and I'm trying to do it right. Trying to look back
so I can wait, so I can look forward. Look back on Immanuel
and the nativity to look forward to Christ coming in power. Looking back,
into a stable and manger to look forward to golden streets
to tears wiped away, to unwrapping that big present
I've had my eye on, the one the perfect size to be anything.
I'm looking back to a morning star to look forward
to that everlasting, great getting up morning when
I won't have to wait.

It's Advent and I'm struggling to do it right.
I'm looking back, but my eyes are wandering.
The girl with the Seahawk sweatshirt, my gas gage,
the numbers on my scale and on my pay check.
I'm having a hard time not looking forward
to bills, oil changes, new semesters and new papers.
I'm trying to take the time to wait
to climb the tower and keep watch.

I wonder where the magi were when they saw the star.
If they had just stepped out to the out house, and noticed
something new on the horizon. What did their wives think
when they told them they were going on a trip with their
work friends to find some new King? I bet they were caught off gaurd.
Like the man at my church, on the John, thinking about a million other things:
the weather, dinner, business, family issues, and then BOOM
there's a new star. Shepherds had to have shit themselves
when the chorus of angels appeared to tell them
God had come.

It's Advent, and it's time for me to look back
so I can look forward to a time when I'll be taken-off gaurd.
So I can look forward to that great moment when, throughout the world,
every pair of underwear will need to be changed. It's time for me to remember
a single mother and her fiancee trying to understand what had just happened,
so that I can look forward to a new morning
when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

The wait is indeed well with my soul.