Annunciation, Visitation

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For a dear friend who is finally going to have to go to hospital. Please pray for him.

Elizabeth and Zechariah
Walk into the house of fire
Where the angels wreath the spire
And one old man alone
In the temple finds desire
Like a dog his bone.

Gabriel, Elizabeth
Is shaken with your burning breath,
meanwhile in humble Nazareth
The virgin in the house
Attends upon a birth and death
And trembles like a mouse.

Look at her, unwind your scroll,
Let the heavenly message roll
Like thunder through her pale white soul
As ghostly as her room,
Trample like an angry bull
About her seedless womb.

Hail Elizabeth! our meeting
Sees our children leap in greeting,
Hear their fists and foreheads beating
Hard against the wall,
While the lambs in flocks are bleating,
Come one, come two, come all.

Come one, come two, come all to feast,
Come to the lesser and the least,
Come to us out of the East,
While one old man alone
Becomes as dumb as any beast
And still as any stone.

George Szirtes - Annuciation, Visitation