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2 poems about Epiphany (small e, large E) or the epiphanous

Here are two poems about this date, religiously and globally.  It is Orthodox Christmas, however (and Happy Christmas!), with Orthodox Epiphany twelve days from today.

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Epiphanies

(track the Es)

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Merry Christmas

To the Orthodox

Though it is Epiphany

For the west

And west of east

Epiphany is day for

Discovery

In class we might be taught

That epiphany small-e

Denotes a moment when

Things come together

And we realize

Something grand

About life

And living

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The catalyst isn’t something

Well-known

It’s not the wedding day

Or the trip to Disneyland

Not even

Hiking to the peak

It is washing dishes

Playing with children

(don’t let the moment

get you struck

with a game ball)

Beholding the postal carrier

Who knows

Something for

Each one of us

What we realize

Is that

Life is this

And shall not be the same

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For an example

You might have missed

In school,

Stephen Daedalus

In Portrait

Espies a woman by the water

No one he knows

And will not see again

Yet he discovers

Realizes

How the world is

And his part to play

While she is not Arthurian

And Excalibur

Is not presented from the water

The scene is ordinary;

No one else could

Tell

And we know

Because we have the story

Only here

Not worthy in a ledger

Or a history

Or an age

Or of a people

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It might be

That each of an

Arthur

Or a king

Between genders

All of us

And one by one

But that is an essay

To argue a metaphor

For an assignment

As Arthur learns a destiny

For Camelot

So we discover

What we have

In a realm of one

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Could this be

A partnered thing?

Modernism

Would say no

But now that we are post-,

Why not?

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Epiphany large-E

Means discovery

As the Magi come upon

The child Jesus,

Understanding all the prophecy

That hinted in a star

And in old narratives

That someone

Would be here

To change the world

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There is another such

(same day)

Recalling Jesus with

His cousin John

And baptism by the Jordan

Jesus is grown now

And insists

His cousin dedicate

Jesus with water;

John demurs,

But Jesus shall have it in

No other way

And when the water pours

The sky opens

There is a dove descending

And a voice to hear

Announcing

And approving

Jesus to God

And back to Earth

This is the discovery

(large E)

For him

The prophet

And the human world

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For us beholding

Realizing

Changing us

Perhaps

However evangelism

Falls

Like a descending dove

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The Patrick’s Day Party

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Today is the sixth

Of January,

A date that could live

In infamy

But won’t

The government is stable

Except for Republicans

And Democrats

Who decided that

Polemics is the better

Form

Of politics

Shall there be a conservative

Democrat?

Shall there be

A liberal Republican?

By no means

Not here

Not now

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Perhaps it’s time

For other parties

Our parent founders

Did not have in mind

Only two

We could bring back Whigs

I don’t know

What Whigs are

I still imagine them

In wigs

Of a past design

The Know-Nothing party

Is too on-the-nose

For how things

Go today

The Federalists?

The Loyalists?

The New-Year’s-Eve?

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I’d go for the

Saint Patrick’s Party

We could all wear green

To treat each other

And our planet green with

Sainthood

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C L Couch

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Photo by Malcolm Lightbody on Unsplash

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