extension cords
Harvey S. Mozolak

the incarnation is a large event
its time now extended
not quite nine months
but more than four evergreen weeks
its greatness causes some to dress
as saintly statuary and mime
holiness in blood red coat and fallen mitre
with the skin of winter beasts
white like snow edging 
the hint of martyrdom
the light of a world now so bright
it is strung by the 100’s in blinking watts
plugged to power that kills



antiphons in honor
of the blessed virgin
Harvey S. Mozolak

our creedal chants
apostolicly assert 
she is the anchor of our Lord’s manhood
where heaven drowns in the depth of humanity
under the brooding wings of the Holy Spirit

in magnificats sung each vespered night
she celebrates her divine Son’s blood borne
victory over 
the proud
the mighty
the full
the rich
with the Almighty’s mercy begun 
in her straw-strewn arms



ὁ ὢν
Harvey S. Mozolak

her hands hold his cheeks and chin
“I AM he who is” 
his containing ribs and reaching arms 
and jiggling legs too loose as yet to go
Mary’s fingers slippery with shared blood
holding God squirming is difficult
but delightful
she has held bread offering it 
baked and fresh to Joseph
in daily sustenance shared
and now her son
through the morning window 
the light of the lesser sun 
breaking behind his head
making the exchange difficult
and yet the man too takes him firmly
the peace of God given whole
as they with us are received 
back into the ciborium of heaven
his every breath
the heaving opening of the heavy hinges
of death with God-enfleshed life
holding and being held

(ὁ ὢν— on icons, Greek letters often written on 
Christ’s halo, spelling “the being” or “He who is” 
from Ex. 3.4  and Rev. 1)



xmas beginnings 
Harvey S. Mozolak

the thatch on the stone
where hens scratch
and the donkey gets his straw
the cow his cup of grain
is bed of God 
whose head holds what stars dream
and suns energy



native to us
Harvey S. Mozolak

in the high corners of the room
to the sides of the narrow door
straw is stuffed
bird-borne from feathered families past
left for the cold season
when only angels are a-sky
on the floor there are three
huddled beneath 
the heaviness of what this might mean
in the flickering gold of a loaned lantern
behind the stall wall
a patch of dried dung
animal leavings left like discarded sin 
on the trampled earth



fearful thing
Harvey S. Mozolak

enslaved to our flesh
held by hay 
and the field’s flaxen fibers
of swaddling
folding his clay
to an animal’s feeding place
and our breathless arrival
smelling of frightened sheep
ewes and lambs



untangled
Harvey S. Mozolak

time twisted
un-wrenching with a sounded alarm
the voice at the beginning to begin
with the silence of the Word
that has spoken everything
to hear and sing
among the deaf and dumb
now mouthed 
in the single syllabic God
“whaaaa”
among the the murmur of cows
the scratching of a hen for seed
a movement amid a dove’s discomforted feathers
fumbling with what linens
are found for the child who is Lord
lain heaven’s blessing 
splattered in her blood
the soaked shroud blanket
beneath the clouds 
where angel armies
avert their eyes
in holy aghast
at the empty arm of the throne
now in the arms 
of a weak woman and unarmed man
whose hammer and nails
for the time
remain packed in a sack
near the stirring donkey
awaiting
eternity’s unwinding
its swaddling



crowded sky ground alone
Harvey S. Mozolak

crowded like clouds flecked reach
winged angels over the flock
above fleeced glory
here the heavens allow low 
and aloud greeting 
the good and new
pressed in rock and wood
the nail-less cave
not yet but true
shepherd in the straw
there for our flaw 
amid animal paw
the awe of God 
raw 
crèched in fresh flesh
Word twisted 
cloth gagged
without speech
no thunder or sky-pulsed flame
but the quiet reign of God
Jesus his silent name
held in the eternal gasp
of the highest host
 


In Sentence Form
Harvey S. Mozolak

The timing of salvation is very helpfully drawn tightly to the cross but we should not ignore that the first confinement was not by Pilate’s police but by the Blessed Virgin’s womb and the earliest nails were manger straw, the preliminary purple robe of ridicule was wrapping God in swaddling cloth and Joseph may not have been an Cyrenean but his hard palms clumsily catching the Incarnate’s leap from heaven to earth were well splintered from wood in the Fall’s condemning brow-sweat.  And these but the beginning hours of the Passion according to Christ.

On Rosetti’s 

“A Baby Is a Harmless Thing”

Harvey S. Mozolak

A lion is a captive thing

Behind strong bars in zoo displays

the sun’s bright high and holy ring

His golden mane like rays

The cage is littered with a floor of straw

Its cold and wet is hardly meet but raw

The wind the door by which he came

To Judah land and tribe to free

Become our King of all the beasts

Within his is now a mild wildness

As angels hold their roar to see

He who overpowering 

Could claw and  maul

Yet offers a thin and thirsty feast

To take and eat our fearful fall

garland 

Harvey S. Mozolak

boughs of green

angel-feathered

over the doorway

to time

the entering trembles

for the hour knows the honor

of the eternal

bending and bowing

to breath and breathing

the infant’s 

first lung’s exhalation

a trumpet of mercy

to the farthest sea

the most distant land

the marooned and frozen

hidden hearts

remote from God

left-up adornments

Harvey S. Mozolak

accidentally forgotten

a wooden angel 

on a bedroom fan pull 

a glass star dangling 

down a clear filament

from the living room ceiling

the marks on the wall

in increments where the toddler’s height

was marked and measured

with a carpenter’s careful eye

except these measure

the downfall of glory

in the pull of the gravity

of our grave depression

unadorned

purposely remembered

announcement

Harvey S. Mozolak

the girl leaned over

hand over hand

lifting the rock deep

cold water

with a wet rope

to pour into her clay vessel

“Mary!”

she dropped

the bowl

and in the splash

the flash of light

voiced

like lightning on the sea

the angel stood by the wood

of a tree

beside the well

his hand or wing or flame

held in speaking 

silence peace and greater greeting

than even his heavenly bearing bore

from beyond above

where the name is seen

but never said

let it be but…

how can the sun be within the earth

and more magnificent

the Lord within me?

yad-touched by God

        (yad - Hebrew ritual pointer 

            used in reading untouched Torah )

angel:  music notations

Harvey S. Mozolak

surely they will not hear our high notes

we will have to treble almost all of the gloria

down and softer

like the lowing of cattle

a murmuring of doves

and the settling sounds 

of lambs and ewes

and our brightness

dim to dawn and dusk’s golds

lest we blind them

when they see 

how fragile is his hold on his life

yet somehow our paean must praise

his tenacious grasp 

reaching to hold the wood 

baton of blessing

directed to heal their pain

first tune

Harvey S. Mozolak

none lullaby the virgin’s labor

her moans of pain

break the silence of the night

yet the Father knows

heaven pangs 

at the giving of the perfect peace

the prince of the good of grace

left upon the barn’s golden field lace

soft notes of the song of salvation

Father and fatherly 

Harvey S. Mozolak

sweetly Joseph cut 

from the field 

beyond the city’s low broken wall

some tender Sharon roses

and placed them on the straw strands

near his beloved and the one they loved

who loved the world

and all its weeds

God the Father stemmed the stars

using several comets to vase

and spread their light as ferns

among the blossoms 

of gathering angel wings

dark deep after sun down

Harvey S. Mozolak

the loose thatch and timber slats

allow the light through the roof 

from the moon and the stars

and somehow from the hillside fires 

where shepherds camp with their flocks

most on the way up the road 

to Shalem and the burning blaze

and sweet smoke

of Zion’s high altar

more light than the night normally affords

touching the face of the child

his mother calling him

her little lamb as the carpenter 

arranges him

on the wood frame he has formed

for bedding above the bowled stone

where animals feed

the donkey asleep and the cow

watching with an unmoving head

but old observing eyes

they turn

the rustling at the doorway 

announces some have come

with lanterns, staves and cloaks of skins

who must have heard

the infant cry at the light from the sky

among winged winds singing 

in the high meadows 

where there is more light

than the night normally affords

they will tell of sight and song

seen and heard of holiness

burning and bright then on the hill 

and now on the cold dark hay

heard by this night flock gathered 

before God’s seh

(seh - Hebrew for lamb)

masses in motion

Harvey S. Mozolak

a slit in the sky

a star parting the night

with light

the lamp of the angels

first carolers of the incarnation

this candle pillar

powered by peace

radiance eternal

above

the congregated custodians 

of a quiet quilt of wool

as the entrance hymn

of the first mass

among the mounds

of ground that surround

Bethlehem

a moaning mound of flesh

bears heaven and earth

as one

winter

Harvey S. Mozolak

there are those who look for a winter rose

an unseasonably warm Eve 

or Christmas Day to say

that something special has happened

and touches nature again when

all it takes is to look into each other’s eyes

and know that God has come down through the skies

to be a warm one of us whether young to old

he is with us even through three deadly days of cold

^  

Harvey S. Mozolak

With a drawn lower stem 

a simple symbol of a seasonal stock

the insertion mark in typography

indicating the place for a missing Word

spear-head for addition 

before subtraction

usually two lines often blood-red

outline of a “little roof” 

as it is called in one tongue

protecting emptiness beneath

His however inverted inserted

down and descending

mäkčeň in Slovak the diacritical notation

is a letter glyph

an ornament calling forth a certain silence

speaks a softening of sound

the lines of a caron

evergreen every-one ever-equal and eternal

the tri-love of God emptied

the Trinity opened and poured out

sent from and in and with

the Father’s faithful love

conceived by the Holy Spirit’s deep

and lasting power to comfort

in the pure and perfect jewel of grace

torn and thrown 

from the divine diadem’s peak

an unseen plunging Victory

Human triad

tall Joseph braced by a beam

with Mary bent in blessing

and our small God molding

a human triangle

ting a ringing gloria