Though Barbara Crooker describes a modern Christmas in her text for Completing the Circle, there is a timeless, even ancient sense of ritual in the way she depicts the season of Advent: “gathering branches / of green pine... / making rings of fire / in wax and wood.” The memory of Christmases past can be bittersweet, too, and Crooker alludes to this in the darkness that winter brings: “days of grey / and iron nights.” 

Ultimately, though, memories offer us a link to the past as well as a comfort that can be felt even in the darkest nights of winter. Christmas carols, I think, do exactly the same thing.

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Completing the Circle is dedicated with gratitude to the participating choruses of the Christmas Past, Christmas Future! Carol Consortium, who co-commissioned this piece along with Glorious, Glorious. While Completing the Circle sets a modern text that recalls nostalgic memories of Christmas, Glorious, Glorious sets a classic text that looks ahead to a bright future. 

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text

ADVENT

with the women, waiting,

gathering branches

of green pine

in the dead of the year,

making rings of fire

in wax and wood,

completing the circle

with calls and cards,

wreathing the children

in cinnamon and chocolate,

stringing berries and corn,

stringing memories,

quilting them tightly,

in winter,

with the days of grey

and iron nights.

—Barbara Crooker

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Similar to Completing the Circle:

Glorious, Glorious

Ring Out, Ye Bells