Watch for the Signs - Horizongate

The poem “Watch for the Signs” is read by the author Mark R. Turner as images of the Milky Way, the Magi, Mary, Joseph and the Christ Child depict the turmoil of Jesus’ infancy and growth to adulthood. Questioning faces of Jesus’ contemporaries lead us to consider that the quest continues and we are now the multiplied Magi journeying on into the unknown. The film features dramatic orchestral music, motion graphics and animation.
See the short blog posted with the film at https://horizongate.org/2026/02/watch-for-the-signs/
Here is the text of the poem:

Watch for the signs,
Gifts inserted
From outside space time;
Search like the Magi
Studied star charts.

The Spirit massages
Your capacities to journey
And follow the inkling
Of an idea that has yet no name;
New language forms to express it.

Seek in your obscurity
Like the girl in the unknown village
Pregnant against the law in a man’s world
And her loyal husband packing before sunrise
To run as aliens from genocide.

Atrocities raged by will of position;
A baby breathed every day somewhere
And was carried back to the village
To follow the woodworker’s craft,
Grew to be loved by the unknowns.

When would his new creation unveil?
Year after year, household and neighbor,
We thought he would become more,
Were watching for signs,
Wishing for newness.

We thought in a lifetime
The change would be accomplished,
The spark would grow refining fire.
But still a star leads
In uncharted space.

Formation takes longer
Than the sense of a beyond
Stepping out increments,
Carrying our offerings
Toward the hopeful destination.

Watching from over there
The Magi attend our progress,
The constellations of signs
Reaching forward in the dark
With gifts traveling afar.

Mark composed the music for this film using Fender Notion and Fender Studio Pro 8 (both formerly PreSonus), as well as Adobe Audition. The Zoom H4next portable recorder and the Pacific Pro Audio LD-One condenser microphone were used for recording Mark’s voice. He did the original artwork in Adobe Photoshop. He created the motion graphics and assembled the film in Adobe After Effects and Premier Pro.