Expectation

by Jon Raymont Jost

“How can this be?”
Almost aloud again, her gasp
moves hand to womb and rests it—there,
a knot of fear and wonder—where
Immanuel is formed

A tender shoot, he grows
in virgin soil, this fragile frame,
a root from her unwatered ground
within her faithful flesh is found
and by her blood is warmed

But how inglorious
this expectation: retching in
the basin, nauseated lays
and, bed-bound, craves, through cracked lips prays
to Him who dwells within

We all creation groan
with her for him to be revealed
while mankind’s Glory sleeps, her griefs
are multiplied. And yet she shall
be saved in bearing Him.

J.R. Jost is a husband, father, linguist, enthusiast of coffee and smoking (meat, not leaves), secretly a singer-songwriter, and openly a philologist in its etymological sense: a lover of language and of words.

Photography by Kenneth Godoy