Annunciation

Virgin hears crash.

Lightning flashes

She bolts up, jaw agape, 

 Book falling.

The winged envoy kneels

  announcing 

  “Hail, favored one!

   The Lord is with you!”

Favored, how? 

And why?

Only a teen

Eating bread and pigeons.

Living in hut—no Herodian palace.

Yet

The Almighty sees her.

Knows her.

Calls her

Blessed.

But this task!

She clenches fist.

He is with her.

Resolve rises.

Who is like the Lord?

Has anyone precedent for this?

Still, she determines to trust

  the impossible.

Because all His ways are just.

Because the spoken word comes with blaze

  And sound of waves.

She inhales scent of honeysuckle 

  and nods.

A child this winter.

“May this thing you have said

 Come true in me.”

She thinks

Not my will,

But God’s.

Ruach overshadows,

Hovering as when the spoken word brought matter. 

Someday she will know 

that the one bringing travail

himself birthed the universe.