Simeon (2026)

You were not the first, were you, 
to trust the life of one just born, 
to let that be 
what bids you end with hope? 

Still, how did you know the deeper thing? 
How did you recognize this weak-and-needing One 
as strong enough 
to bear the weight of your own falling life? 

Were you bathed in light, 
enough light for a whole world? 
And did it come from those two eyes, 
seeing you so brightly against the gloom of age? 

Is what you saw so clearly, 
through dim eyes and temple smoke, 
the not-so-distant crisis 
when this baby’s wounded hands 
would carry us, whose souls are pierced
– you, Anna, Mary, all creation – 
home?

(For the Feast of the Presentation, February 2)

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