As Advent begins, this Poem by Patrick Kavanagh sets the scene and is a good introduction to some of the themes of this season of waiting for the coming of the Christ child. Like much of Kavanagh’s work, this poem celebrates the beauty and spirituality found in the commonplace.  It also rejects the prevailing materialistic and intellectual mindset, where people are consumed by knowledge and pleasure. Instead true fulfilment lies in embracing the ordinary and mundane. There is a need to rediscover the childlike innocence and the sense of wonder, dulled by worldliness and indulgence. A need to see God in the bits and pieces of every day.Â
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.