ADVENT 2011

11/27/2011:  in the black crow that flew to the top edge of a building, walking to the left above the sign “CVS Pharmacy”, then flying away from a spot above the “C”, for “Christ”, today being the first day of the Advent period, which ends with Christmas - in the sound of the wind, shortly after midnight, as if a trumpet blast announcing Advent or the Shofar before Rosh Hashanah

11/28/2011:  in the three teenagers on Edgewood Avenue in the morning, probably waiting for a school bus, one sitting on the front steps of a house with the other two standing on the sidewalk before him, one on either side, their heads forming a perfect triangle, parallel to the ground

11/29/2011:  in the two bows of ribbon on the wreath in Saint Stanislaus Church, the end of the top one, pointing to the “Joy” on a banner behind it, with the end of the lower bow, pointing to the picture of Christ above the altar

11/30/2011:  in the sign on the entrance to a vacant ware-house, with atmospheric wear and dirt, somewhat obscuring the name and the function of a company long since gone (“Distributors and Manufacturers of Architectural Interior and Exterior Lighting Systems” in black and “Electrical Surplus LTD” in red, also barely visible), beside to the left a large oval with no image or words – in the “MOM”, painted in large black letters above the rear window of a cab used to pull a trailer, under which in smaller black letters

                                       In memory of Maureen + 

with a Harley Davidson Motorcycle decal on the window

12/01/2011:  in the 3 lit “Staples” signs on each of the 3 sides of a building on Route 1, on this first day of the last month, the first letter of the alphabet, “A”, is lit on one sign, is half lit on another, and on the third is dark, while above them the moon is half full - in the wire cone, representing a Christmas tree, the lights on the bottom half are on but those on the top half are not

12/02/2011:  in the 4 windows of a house before dawn lit by a nearby street light - in the 2 sets of two signs each, all pointing to establishments on the right, one sign of the first set pointing to a restaurant, the other to a tattoo shop and, a block away, one sign of the second set pointing to another restaurant, the other to the store front of an exercise trainer - in the thought that contributions to favorite charities would have to be reduced for various reasons, one of the 5 lit bulbs in a bathroom fixture goes out

12/03/2011:  in the triangle made by tent poles in a neighbor’s back yard, beside a white, square file cabinet - in a sign along Route 95, its red “The” of a sign alone is lit

12/04/2011:  in the 2 squirrels foraging in a front yard, then racing in a straight line to a tree, when one races to the right and the other to the left - in the small metal brace of a gutter on a roof illuminated by the setting sun and pointing directly to three small leaves in a line

12/05/2011:  in the piece of dental floss, discarded in a bathroom waste-paper basket, one end curled at the bottom and the other end extended in a straight line, as if a snake had been charmed to rise from its basket, pointing to a white roll of bathroom tissues in a horizontal fixture beside another less full roll that stands vertically on a radiator cabinet  

12/06/2011:  in the 2 branches outside Saint Stanislaus Church, one flat on the ground, pointing to the rear bicycle wheel seen between two parked autos and the other a few feet away, at a slight angle with the ground, pointing to the inverted red triangle on a stanchion in the middle of the road, to remind drivers to stop for pedestrians crossing the street in that location

12/07/2011:  in the 2 signs on a street in Orange: “Estate Acres”, inadvertently below, “Dead End” - in the 2 light fixtures of the overhead canopy at the Mobil Station, 3 of the 4 lights of one fixture and 3 of the 6 lights of the other are lit, at the juncture of Route 63 and Route 69, each divisible by 3

12/08/2011:  in the slight, white, somewhat round burn on the knuckle of the thumb of the right hand, the result of touching a portion of a hot oven, in the shape of the full moon seen this evening

12/09/2011:  in the former sign for an auto repair shop, long since gone, is now only a frame on a pole except for a sliver of the sign with a single word at the bottom, “Auto”

12/10/2011:  in the 3 lights on a fixture above the kitchen table to which the next section of a roll of paper towels points, lying on a nearby counter, the lights hidden behind a cabinet for dishes above the counter, but seen when stooping, just before midnight - in the light of a neighbor’s window, exactly at midnight, that appears through one of the 6 panes of a window, which vanishes when a floor lamp is turned on to reflect instead the green, red and black of an abstract painting on the wall behind the lamp

12/11/2011:  in the 3 sections of tape wrapped around a telephone pole, equidistant from each other, with the number “49” between the bottom and the middle tape for the 4 corners of the world along side of  Trinity times Trinity - in the directional sign for Route 63, the 6, the symbol of the imperfections and limitations of human nature, beside the 3, the symbol of the Trinity, below a tilted “North-South” sign, the “South” section pointing  to a dark brown or black square container for something on the ground with the “North” section pointing to the sky

12/12/2011:  in the lit “J” for “Jesus” of the digital identification panel in the center of the rear end of a bus, signifying the bus route, with a yellow light flashing on each side, below 3 small, lit red lights, near the roof and with a lit red light on each of the back corners - in the shadow of a nearby dome with a pointed steeple, which at a given moment separates the 3 visible, vertical, narrow windows on the bottom of the Morris College tower from the 4 vertical, narrow windows directly above them, the intransient from the transient

12/13/2011:  in the plethora of 3s - in the 2 pieces of paper and 1 plastic bag that fly off a refuse truck, driving on State Street - in the 3 cards outlining the changes to the Roman Missal, which drop from a container at the back of a pew to the floor from no apparent cause - in the time (3:17 PM) and the temperature (43 degrees) on the Walgreen digital sign at a given moment - in the question a man asks a woman at the jewelry counter at Macy’s: “Do you want a $300.00 watch?” - in the 3 bags of groceries purchased at Stop and Shop

12/14/2011:  in the red lights on the 4 rear corners of a white garbage truck, parked by a curb, announced by the flashing, yellow, emergency lights of another city truck with a red triangle on the rear, which pulled beside the other and stopped, as the men in each truck wave to one another

12/15/2011:  in the descending crane of a utility repair truck with a workman in its bucket slowly coming down to earth amid flashing lights on its base and on a nearby police car - in the three ladies feverously writing labels for packages in a post office, 2 at a counter and the third kneeling on the floor with a young child on her back

12/16/2011:  in the small, dead fly on its back on a bookshelf, its 2 legs joined as if praying - in the first “g” of the Bruegger’s sign, the only one not lit, dividing the name into 4 letters on the right and on the left, as though God had been removed from the world, as Christ has been from Christmas in the modern mind, having been replaced by a nondescript “X”

12/17/2011:  in the 2 second-story windows of a house, the rectangular one on the right is completely covered by a white sheet, while the other on the left, under a semicircular roof, is half covered by a black triangular sheet or paper

12/18/2011: in the 2 loops of a piece of rope tossed or dropped on the cellar floor in the shape of 2 tear drops, with 1 loop situated north-south and the other east-west - in the Christmas decorations in 2 windows of a house, on the right 2 strands of lights forming an “X” and on the left one strand as a diagonal cutting it into 2 right triangles

12/19/2011: in the ray of light that settles above 2 books of poetry and the Holy Bible on a shelf in a book case, not in direct sunlight but as a refraction from a nearby window and, a few moments later, in the ray of light that settles above 2 more books of poetry and a book of a selection of sermons of Lancelot Andrewes, the former Lord Bishop of Winchester

12/20/2011:  in the yellow, circular light fixture, which is lit and seen through the second from the left window of a set of 4 on the second floor of the Yale Law School;

12/21/2011:  in the straight 90 degree angle-edge of the nearby counter, made by the joining of its 2 sides, to which the car key points, that has fallen to the kitchen floor, in the thought of the consistency of nature - in the plastic bottle on a sidewalk that points to the grate that covers stairs to the basement - in the pink, plastic clothes hanger, attached to the 7th rung of the basket of the 3rd shopping cart tried in the Costco parking lot - in the square bucket at the end of a crane, carrying a workman, that descends and for a moment is beside the Nissan circle on the side of a wall of an auto showroom - in the piece of rope seen on December 18th on the cellar floor that has formed itself into the shape of a heart

12/22/2011:  in the 3 bicyclists who pass in tandem behind the sign (“In the Struggle for Justice”) of a law firm that has adopted that interstate highway exit - in the “39 saves lives!” that lights up on a highway sign to moderate traffic, the numbers being the speed of a passing vehicle, the Trinity and the Trinity times the Trinity

12/23/2011:  in the in the 2 piles of rubbish on a grassy strip along Edgewood Avenue, the pile on the right a chaotic mess, while on the left a wooden plank sitting on a black box parallel to the road, just before an auto parked on the side of the road with “For Sale 3000” written with soap on the front window

12/24/2011: in the figure “9” in the far left of 4 rectangles on the canopy of a Hess Gas Station, probably for advertising the price of fuel, with the other 3 rectangles now painted white