Advent at Eye Clinic – Jakarta (Klinik Mata)

Old smog-choked Jakarta, in the back-underside of the world,
and I wait alone to see the eye doctor.
Across from me
a blind baby on his back stares up as alone in his world as I am here.
White Christmas lights in sparkling globes
dance their patterns across his face.
To his eyes these darkest days
are just as dark as any;
his round, coffee eyes rove his black world,
his unlit orbs in sockets look inward and
no giggle bubbles out
applauding the shimmering lights.
His faithful mama, her head bends over
his unseeing face. And there she hovers, as the only soul in the room, in the city.
Caressing him with her eyes,
she anoints his face with her proud, proud love.
Her son, her only mission, and her dear-heart:
And her blind baby has all the light he needs to see her
because to her,
he’s the apex of perfection.
Their love’s so electric it sparks,
arcs in the span between us—
I shift to escape its reach
and fail, then it comes to me,
It’s Advent: the Time when the Father
of All brings forth His loving Expression
and, yes, opens the eyes of
His blind babies.
And I shift again to close the gaping hole
in my well-woven cloak of theology.
But I feel it has no warmth–
pierced as it was
when I let all rays of my head and my heart conjoin,
and in their coming together
formed one, pointed exclamation
which burns hotter than the tropical sun at noon,
and has followed me far, so far,
to this land of heat & spices.
Distance makes no matter, and can’t stop movement of His fullness:
         Desolation precedes Consolation
The flooding meaningfulness of His love pours through my veins,    refilling me.
I’m an old, cold and blind babe, fresh-captivated
in the warming draw of His Streaming Gaze.

– A Charity Higgins Johnson © 2015