Rapidly now it comes
The blanket of night pulled over the eyes
The lid of darkness closed atop the box of day.
Chastised, the sun peers from far space
Late in the morning and noncommittal.
Darkness grasps after the light, late into the day
Never quite dispersing, until, while still afternoon
Thick night comes again, victorious.

The sun is a weak player, these December days.
It has no confidence, nor we in it,
That its heat and light are enough to power the
Hope and expectation we need for this world
And our lives in it.  Instead,
The sick sun succumbs, to grey, and cold
The pale sun fades further into irrelevant
Illumination:  a night light.

Why then, in this long evening
Do our thoughts turn to joy
And love, on this cold ground
Under this obscure sky, that something saving
Could be born?  When the turning planet
And the stars above, tell us we are spinning
Into darkness, where comes this hope?
Our unfounded optimism?

From some persistent memory
Of our cells, we know, we trust, that
Life is birthed from shrouded places
In humble rooms, in wombs, in seeds.
Here in this closing, this seeming ending
Is the necessary condition for unimaginable opening.
Darkness is full now, but full to bursting.  
Rapidly now it comes.