Gyroscope Review is celebrating National Poetry Month with a Poem Renaissance, a review of previously published poems looking for new life and new views. Every day through May 20th, a new poem to fall in love with all over again.
Epiphany
by Marjorie Maddox
January 6, 2021
And so they rush the steps and bash the doors.
With windows smashed, the winter light breaks in.
Forgotten is the frankincense, the myrrh,
the gold the wisemen brought. Instead, our kin
or neighbors storm the halls. We recognize
their faces, tense with hate. In different form
they look a bit like us. Yet we surmise
this mob that waves its flags, together swarms
toward House or Senate, cannot live so near.
We say hello on walks? They guard our homes?
This is the hard epiphany we fear:
the ones we loathe and love might be the same.
And that bright star? We find the manger bare
except for all our anger swaddled there.
Copyright © 2021 by the Christian Century and reprinted by permission from the 24 February 2021 issue of Christian Century, reprinted in Verse Virtual, and appearing in Begin with a Question (Paraclete Press, March 2022). The author owns all rights.
Professor Emerita of English at Commonwealth University, Presence assistant editor, and WPSU-FM Poetry Moment host, Marjorie Maddox has published 17 collections of poetry—including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation; Begin with a Question; In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind; Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For; Small Earthly Space, Seeing Things and Hover Here (forthcoming)—plus a story collection, 4 children’s books, and the anthologies Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania and Keystone Poetry. www.marjoriemaddox.com
Don’t forget to read the Spring 2025 Issue, available now, online and in print
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